A few months ago EA invoked the rage of most of the games industry when they announced they would be charging people for weapons in their upcoming Battlefield game, Battlefield: Bad Company. This effectively meant not buying the content would leave you at a disadvantage to all the users who did decide to pay. The uproar seemed to be too much for them in the end though, and they decided to drop the idea all together, or so it seemed.
They may not be charging us for this extra content, instead replacing the fee with a series of ludicrous hoops to jump through. What I am referring to is the various exclusive content deals that have been made. It was first brought to my attention earlier today when I achieved the final rank available in the demo. The game informed me that upon completion of this task I had unlocked a weapon in the main game, that can only be obtained by playing and finishing this demo. I didn't find this to be too much of a problem. I had been playing the game with Lant and we found the game to be quite impressive. When looking into purchasing the game Lant came across this. For those who don't feel like clicking, pre-ordering with play.com gets you a code to unlock the QBU-88, yet another exclusive weapon.
The straw that broke the donkeys back was the "Gold" edition of the game. The Gold edition, amongst other things, gives you access to 5 weapons only available in the game by achieving the highest multiplayer rank available. I can't find any pricing information on this "privilege", where EA effectively finish the game for you, but I imagine it will be slightly more expensive than the standard edition.
It's not a strange occurrence nowadays to find something like a limited edition of a game exclusive to a particular store, but this definately crosses the line. The limited edition isn't just a bunch of "making of" movies, art work or music. This is game content, and not even single player game content like they did with Spider-Man 3 and the new goblin. This is multiplayer content, where you have the choice of working to get these weapons, or to just have them straight away. Will the people who got the gold edition be allowed to play with the non-gold players? Does this mean the people who decided to play the game properly will have to put up with people running around with these end game weapons all the time? It tarnishes the achievement.
The pre-order presents an issue of it's own, if you want to play this game competitively on an even playing field you need to have finished the demo and pre-ordered from play.com. Effectively people who don't decide to buy this game before it is released will be at a disadvantage. This isn't just a decision that is going to make them more money, it's a decision that could take a quality game and make it totally broken. I don't agree with many of todays exclusivity deals, but I accept most of them as business, and as long as they don't affect the game I'm willing to turn a blind eye, but I think it's stupid moves like this that are going to have a seriously negative effect on the industry.
The worst part about all of this is that the game is seriously awesome. It is a true credit to the battlefield series. I just think we need to draw a line on what is acceptable. I will probably buy the game, but I wont be getting it from play.com, and I won't be getting the Gold edition. Vote with your wallet.
-Dash out