Battlefield Fans Don't Like Freebies

M-E-D The Poet

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GeorgW said:
I love that he felt he needed to clarify that they would not give people $100 to play the game.
Anyway, people are weird. But good on them to not cave in, to me it seems like a lost opportunity for profit.
Nah it's just scumbaggery at this point, there wasn't bitching about getting shit for free rather : there was bitching about getting stuff there should have been all along

I don't want to be the one to cut the horses but : BFBC2'S multiplayer had half the maps BFBC1 had, then they took 2 maps out of 1 and 1 normal map and said : OH LOOK A GIFT FOR YOU AREN'T WE NICE

To which people with good reason responded : Grahh... douchebags....


This is not about Free VS Payed it's about putting a well designed mp out with a game from day one as opposed to trying to pull marketing stunts
 

YodaUnleashed

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Well this doesn't make a lick of sense, I'm a person (I think) and I've never complained about free stuff, or at least the concept and practice of giving away free stuff and I don't see why anyone else would. The quality of the content might not always be up to scratch necessarily but one never complains about it's freeability. That would just be plain stupid. "God, I wish I'd paid for this new map pack, even though it's crappy and sucks." That sentance right there makes absolutely no sense.
 

Zefar

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Irridium said:
The "new maps" they gave away in Bad Company 2 weren't new maps though. They were the same maps the game shipped with, they just put all gamemodes on them as time went on.

They most certainly did not give away new maps for free. Something they said they would do, but didn't. That's why people complained.
Sorry but Oasis, Heavy Metal, Cold War, Harvest Day where all NEW maps that wasn't recycled with new game modes. Heavy Metal and Cold War was from the SP part but that's fine.

So we did get NEW and FREE maps.

For people who whines about it being on another game mode. Rush is pretty much the best thing in BF series yet except for Titan mode. Conquest is basically just Domination on larger scale which has gotten quite boring.

So when you strictly play Rush and get a new map on that game mode it's actually a good thing. Sometimes the new maps we got where better than the stock maps. Much better in fact.

I really hope DICE doesn't start to charge for map packs of any type because of these babies whining for petty things.

Kathinka: Onslaught would have been nice but for the majority of people it would have done nothing. People skipped the SP the moment they started the game and went online right away to play against people. I doubt they would care if they lose a mode where you only fight AI enemies.
 

Epic Fail 1977

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Dec 14, 2010
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I don't know anything about the BF3 freebie mentioned, but I do avoid pre-odering games that come with in-game pre-order "incentives" because of balance issues. The free gun/armor/quest/whatever that you get with the pre-order version often severely imbalances the gameplay. If I wanted that I'd just put the difficulty on Easy.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Zefar said:
Irridium said:
The "new maps" they gave away in Bad Company 2 weren't new maps though. They were the same maps the game shipped with, they just put all gamemodes on them as time went on.

They most certainly did not give away new maps for free. Something they said they would do, but didn't. That's why people complained.
Sorry but Oasis, Heavy Metal, Cold War, Harvest Day where all NEW maps that wasn't recycled with new game modes. Heavy Metal and Cold War was from the SP part but that's fine.

So we did get NEW and FREE maps.

For people who whines about it being on another game mode. Rush is pretty much the best thing in BF series yet except for Titan mode. Conquest is basically just Domination on larger scale which has gotten quite boring.

So when you strictly play Rush and get a new map on that game mode it's actually a good thing. Sometimes the new maps we got where better than the stock maps. Much better in fact.

I really hope DICE doesn't start to charge for map packs of any type because of these babies whining for petty things.
I think you're operating on a different definition of "new". I, and many others, were going on the "never seen before" definition of new. Something they didn't do until the end, with the ported maps from BC1. But even that's stretching it. I'm not angry about the Vietnam expansion, since that brought in much more than just maps, and I'm not angry about recycling maps, but I'm just a little saddened that they decided "new" means "new to the gamemode" for all but two maps instead of "never before seen" new.

As for Battlefield 3, well they are charging for maps. Since the Karkand map pack is going to go for $15 and add much less than the Vietnam expansion. Which I think is sad but not surprising. After all, they're the best maps from BF2, of course they're going to charge for them. Because they know people will gladly pay $15 for them.
 

Shymer

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Feb 23, 2011
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Whateveralot said:
Viral_Lola said:
Who doesn't love free? Well, I guess free tapeworms would be an exception but is free dlc a bad thing?
Haha that's the funniest thing I read in a while. You get some free internet points for that.
According to this article, your Internet points would be more appreciated if they weren't free. Perhaps you ought to consider charging 1200 Microsoft points for them?
 

Dastardly

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Apr 19, 2010
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Andy Chalk said:
Consumers have a much easier time seeing value in bigger expansions that cost money than they do in small freebies, Bach explained, although he pointed out that DICE will nonetheless continue to put out free DLC in the future. "It's just fascinating," he said. "Consumers are not used to getting things. There are no free lunches, and people get very suspicious when they get something for free."
It is pretty interesting, and I think it demonstrates how easily the human mind can be manipulated. (I'm not saying that's what they've done here, just that it is an example of these principles at work.)

If you increase someone's perceived value of an item, their brains occupy themselves with finding ways to explain that perception. They'll fill in blanks, emphasize small benefits, and so on. It's a result of something called "cognitive dissonance."

Our brains tend not to like this dissonance--for instance, spending a lot of money on something and being disappointed. Your subconscious tries to reconcile this disparity (what you paid vs. what it is actually worth) by retroactively altering one or the other. Usually, it means making a bigger deal out of the good points of the purchase, in order to "defend" the amount of money spent.

Of course, it also works preemptively. If you're asking someone for a favor--say, asking them to let you skip in line at the copier--and you practically beg them, like it's the biggest favor in the world? They'll probably let you go. And not just to be polite, either. By acting like it's a tremendous feat, you can actually increase the perceived value of the favor--they'll do it and feel like a hero.

Subtle manipulation in just the framing of a request or marketing technique makes a huge difference in how it's received by quite a few buyers. Funny enough, the smarter customers are sometimes more susceptible--think they're too smart to fall for it, they'll let their guards down, and they're also faster and more creative and finding explanations (justifications) for behaviors.

It scares me a little how easily advertising can control people in subtle ways like this, especially if it begins at an early age. And funny little anomalies like this are just little pop-up reminders that it's still happening.
 

Abedeus

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Sep 14, 2008
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Lillowh said:
NO NO NO! We weren't complaining about free dlc you idiot. Many people loved the maps you gave for free. The problem was that ONLY 1 of the DLC packs actually had new maps. You had 1 piece of free dlc for Battlefield Bad Company 2, the 3 maps (2 maps from the original bad company, and one map blatantly ripped from campaign and just put borders on each side, but we still appreciated them). The rest were just you guys giving what wasn't even a patch(you didn't have to download the so called "VIP Map Packs") where all you did was add on your end the ability to play the disk maps in different modes that you held them back from on release. We weren't complaining about the dlc being free. We were complaining about it being shit.
Exactly. Vietnam had new maps, changes to weapons, vehicles, an actual DLC. Other DLCs I didn't even notice at all. I literally didn't think "Oh wow this is the new DLC so awesome!", I thought "oh.. okay... whatever".

JeanLuc761 said:
I will never understand people's aversion to pre-ordering games. There is absolutely zero consequence to putting $5 on a game before it comes out and nabbing the free stuff that comes with the pre-order. If it turns out you don't want the game by the time it comes out, then simply cancel your pre-order and get a refund or put the money towards something else.

Complaining about free stuff just boggles the mind.
I didn't preorder anything for almost 3 or 4 years since I preordered Neverwinter Nights 2. One of the biggest disappointments when it comes to games in my life.

Then I stupidly pre-ordered From Dust.

Yes, yes, they removed DRM. So what? I don't want liars to get my money.
 

CD-R

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Irridium said:
Zefar said:
Irridium said:
The "new maps" they gave away in Bad Company 2 weren't new maps though. They were the same maps the game shipped with, they just put all gamemodes on them as time went on.

They most certainly did not give away new maps for free. Something they said they would do, but didn't. That's why people complained.
Sorry but Oasis, Heavy Metal, Cold War, Harvest Day where all NEW maps that wasn't recycled with new game modes. Heavy Metal and Cold War was from the SP part but that's fine.

So we did get NEW and FREE maps.

For people who whines about it being on another game mode. Rush is pretty much the best thing in BF series yet except for Titan mode. Conquest is basically just Domination on larger scale which has gotten quite boring.

So when you strictly play Rush and get a new map on that game mode it's actually a good thing. Sometimes the new maps we got where better than the stock maps. Much better in fact.

I really hope DICE doesn't start to charge for map packs of any type because of these babies whining for petty things.
I think you're operating on a different definition of "new". I, and many others, were going on the "never seen before" definition of new. Something they didn't do until the end, with the ported maps from BC1. But even that's stretching it. I'm not angry about the Vietnam expansion, since that brought in much more than just maps, and I'm not angry about recycling maps, but I'm just a little saddened that they decided "new" means "new to the gamemode" for all but two maps instead of "never before seen" new.

As for Battlefield 3, well they are charging for maps. Since the Karkand map pack is going to go for $15 and add much less than the Vietnam expansion. Which I think is sad but not surprising. After all, they're the best maps from BF2, of course they're going to charge for them. Because they know people will gladly pay $15 for them.
Back to Karkland is actually free if you pre-order the game or can somehow get your hands on a special edition post launch. And according to the developers it's going to have all the old weapons and vehicles from Battlefield 2.

http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/battlefield_bad_company/archive/2011/05/10/Back-to-Karkand.aspx

Since it's made by the same team that did the Vietnam expansion I'm pretty confident it's going to be worth it.