Battlefield: Bad Company 2 to have day-one DLC

Hey! How about waiting for some more information before speculating.

If it is anything like Mass Effect Day one DLC, then it is just to prevent Gamestop and secondhand buying. I think this is fine. While GS is great to pickup cheap and sometimes hard(er) to find older titles, they often will resell the used copies for 5/7 dollars off the retail price, while retaining a significantly larger portion of the profit.

If you do the math on ME's day one dlc, it comes across like this-
New game is 60 bucks, includes day one dlc.

buying the game used is 50 bucks (a number I made up for this general purpose) and it would cost 15 dollars to get that dlc you would otherwise have received free if you bought the game new. So you're probably out 65 dollars if you wan't the DLC. This assumes you WANT the dlc.

Either way, EA/Dice (or EA/Bioware in the case mentioned) get their fair share of the profit, from new retail sales or from used sales if you want to buy the dlc.

This still seems reasonable to me.

This being said- the DLC from Mass Effect 2 was NOT integral to the game, and the game was completely playable w/o it. The DLC was just incentive to buy new.

You clearly don't know how game development works. The game goes gold weeks, sometimes months before release. once it goes gold it ships off to manufacturers and the developers can do *nothing* day one DLC is mostly the work of the developers from the day it goes gold to the actual release date.

I'm not saying that some companies don't plan separate DLC outside of the original game, but I am saying early DLC is good for developers and games, as it lets the Devs keep their jobs, and it expands the game.

Do you all read?

He didn't bitch about it being day one. He bitched about multiplayer DLC that would give some people advantages over others just because they have/are willing to spend more. Please, don't just respond with your prejudices.

Which to be honest (and to keep consistency), I really just want to say deal with it. It's all fair because they spent more money on it. Most multiplayer games aren't totally "fair" anyway. You want fair? Go play nQuake. It may seem unfair, but that would just be because you suck at it. Unless you don't, in which case ignore me.

It could be stuff that was cut to make the deadline you never know. Mass Effect gave a few extras so far for free... Even though Zaeed is really making the "whole team surviving" achievement a b*** to get past...

It's a really good strategy to incite people to buy the game new with free extra DLC content on day one instead of losing money on people buying it used or pirated.

The game as it is is already the full game. If you look at the early DLCs, they're just gimmicks but interesting ones and enough to incite gamers to buy the game new.

if it's anything like the first bad company, or battlefield heroes, it won't actually provide a distinct advantage to the people you buy it. You might be able to buy a new machine gun with a higher rate of fire than all the others, but it will probably be less accurate or deadly. It might not even be that, if it's more like Heroes it might just be different skins and silly stuff

Pantsparty, trying to decipher your post, I assume you're talking about "Battlefield: Mech Commander 2", "Battlefield: Before Christ" and "Boyfriend: 1943". And I agree, all were rockin'.

But hold on, no mention of "Bigfoot: 2142"? That's been the most bad-ass Sci-Fi sasquatch simulator to date. Where's the love?

I believe that's BF2:MC, not BFMC2. Regardless, if you thought those were good you'd be blown away by BF2 (the real one on PC, which is litterally a completelly different game to BF2:MC on PS2/Xbox/360)

We have to pay for the day one dlc?... >.> I thought this was unconfirmed :P

Agreed. It's dirty. They did it with the first Battlefield 2 addon. (I forgot the name; I objected to buying it.) Half of it's content was confirmed to be originally from Battlefield 2 but was *cut* so that they could make an expansion.

It's in their best interest to put all the content into the finished product and release a better game. DLC doesn't make a game better, because when the reviews were written, the DLC wasn't out yet, and who reads reviews of DLC to judge whether to buy the actual game? You also don't split the multiplayer community that way: everyone can play on the same servers with all the content.

But Oh No. EA want$ profit$.

And don't go siding with the game devs. I'd give anything to be where they are.

@Moris

I think he's pointing out the fact that there's plenty of room leftover on a Blu-Ray disc but instead of using it they waste bandwith on DLC...

The Premium Edition is actually Limited Edition, i.e. pre-order or day-one buy.... it's the same price.

to get people to buy new?

More than likely it will be free for people who buy the game new.

I really don't see anything wrong with that. You get extra content for supporting EA and Dice for buying new which makes them profit. Beats the hell out of giving all the profits to (insert video game chain) for selling a game used.

Not only that, they frame it as a really positive, exciting bonus they're treating us to.

If it's free, why complain? It's a good way to stop used sales.

How does day-one DLC stop used sales? I mean, it may keep people from trading it in for a little longer, but if they really cared about DLC anyway they would've kept the game to wait for DLC. It's cheaper that way. If a person only wanted to play what was on disc, or played it and didn't like it but couldn't return it anymore, it's still going to end up in the used section, someone will buy it because it's cheaper, and they still get the DLC. And this game is also on PC, so that doesn't even factor into anything.

I think preorder bonuses or one-time-use DLC codes are what can prevent used sales, not just DLC day-one.

Honestly, the only issue here is timeframe. If you bought these games full price and DLC was ready 2 months later, you're still spending the extra money! IT DOESN'T MATTER!

I don't get the complaints. It's like, you're mad that they released DLC instead of adding it on the game? Likely, it was developed during manufacturing time. Games don't just come out the next day after they built everything. Producers need them finished by a certain time for marketing, production, shipping, etc. Frankly, you can look at it in the pessimistic way that seems rather popular, or you could look at it in a way that shows the developer is speeding along with trying to provide you with content.

This whole "Should be on the disc," logic is so bad. Going by that train of thought, the game would be delayed forever to satisfy anyone, as they would have to keep developing DLC. Or just put the DLC off development until release, which is horribly inefficient. Look up pipelining: Why put DLC off when it can be developed while the publisher is doing it's final job?

No, people. Someone already explained before me. It takes awhile for when a game is finished for it to be released. It has to be printed, packed, and shipped and then you have to buy it. That can take time. So developers get to keep working on extra stuff while you wait. Because it's digital, it doesn't have to go through all the printing, packing, and shipping, therefore they come out at the same time.

If it's free, I didn't see that part and I take back what I said, specific to this game.

However, the overall point still stands that if a game has DLC ready for day one, it should a part of the regular game. The whole "shipping-handling-packaging" argument doesn't really work for me.

However, if companies want to release a game, see how it sells for a few months, and THEN decide whether to do the DLC thing, then sure, go for it. Extending replay value on a good a game for $5 or whatever is great as far as I'm concerned.

But to say "Thanks for buying our $60 product on day one! ...now to get everything that you should have gotten on the disc, we'll immediately need another $3, $5, $10" etc. That's just wrong and it's taking advantage of people.

That may or not be what is happening with this particular game, but I think the overall point I was trying to make is valid and something that we all, as loyal consumers to these companies, can agree with.

Hey, Camels, if this game cuts off at the last level in the campaign, or doesn't allow you to fully level up online...then I'll agree with you. Otherwise, your comparison was extremely offbase and quite frankly not very good.

DLC innovative?

Also, the free stuff they are going to give on day one will just be some little something that no-one will really give a toss about, I would guess.
No one's complaining about the free stuff... it's just that we know that's the tip of the iceberg. (with the underwater part being paid items :P )
It's just there to try and sweeten the fact that on top of paying for the game they are going to try and introduce micro-transactions on top of things.

Anyone who played BF2 will know how "well" their add-on pack/DLC strategy worked there.

And referring to another reply by you - comparing Halo to BF:BC2 in terms of gameplay? Good job.

...the free stuff is just to prevent used purchases. You either didn't understand or didn't read the article. No one was talking about later DLC.

I read and understood the article just fine thanks.

Slight choice response ;) or do you care elaborate on how Halo is like BF:BC2 or how DLC is innovative (even in the realm of promoting original purchases)?

No one's talking about later DLC?
How do you interpret "We have an in-game store where ...you can buy new content to the game"?

So, mind showing me where you got the idea that any of this is unavailable to people who got used copies?

so screw the consumer who tries to save money by buying a disc thats been preowned. shenanigans

No Greggoo,

Screw the companies who are turning enormous profits by buying back games for half of their new price, then reselling them for $5-10 less and taking profits away from the developers.

EA has a great idea with their Day 1 DLC. Offer a free download in new copies, the consumer of that new copy uses the code and gets the content for free, then if he decides to sell it off used, then the person who buys that used copy for $10 less can pay the developer the $15 for the DLC. The developer still gets the funds for a copy of the game being sold, and the consumer still gets their DLC.

This will help developers. This will help Physical Media. This will only hurt Game stores who sell used . And consumers like you.

Man, I love all these people who think that retail disc production happens instamagically.

And another thing, I'm mad that the thing I ordered from Amazon today didn't arrive yesterday!

Make DLC interface in-game is NOT right, it make another profile on the same console can't access additional contents unlike every other DLC so far. What if my brother want to play using his account?

What I'm getting tired of is online fps games creating a large gap in between players. With games like MW2 and BC2, people that play a lot dont just have a skill advantage, they have a massive weapon advantage too. By the time players start getting higher ranks in BC2, they have more ammo, larger clips, better zoom, more damaging weapons, better vehicle armor...the list goes on. I greatly am enjoying the BC2 demo on 360, but I probably wont buy the game because I dont have 30 hours a week to invest into it. And I know that a month after release its going to be people at the top with extra time and extra money that have unlocked and bought items that give them a massive advantage and make people that only have 5 or so hours a week to play online basically not welcome at all.

@R
Bad Company 2 is going to be a very team-orientated game. There will be players who are miles ahead of others on both teams. In MW2 even team-games have a sort of 1 on 1 aspect. Whenever you go to capture A in domination you'll end up having to shoot someone or avoid being shot at, in Bad Company 2, most of the time, you'll probably be with your team/squad. That's just how I see it though.

Bring back Goobers dammit!

i would agree that day one DLC like what ME2 did is fine. however, i take issue with this statement:

"The scrumtrulescent developers work so hard to give you all a smorgasbord of stuff to play"

look, I'M the one who pays THEM. i don't need them, they need me. they have to satisfy me in order for them to get paid. they're not entitled to anything. and this applies to all businesses. there's a sign in the Five Guys near me that says something similar.

p.s. - when i say "me" i mean consumers in general.

I never understood why people just don't pay the extra $5 or so and get the game new anyway.

If this content is free if you purchase the game new why would you buy the game used and spend 5 or 10 bucks for DLC?

Smart move EA.

Okay, I'll play the game without you, by the way, tell me how your tank got suck.

In fact...what does that even mean?