Why is Battlefield Premium controversial now again?

[Lordmarkus]

In fairly recent news, EA announced their intentions of releasing, pretty much a copy of Call of Duty: Elite, a service where you will recieve all future DLC and some swag for the additional cost of 50 ?. This has of course caused certain amounts of controversy, considering it is Electronic Arts after all.

My question is: Why? Why is this such a big deal? I happily bought the expansion and booster packs for both Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2 when they were released and I planned to buy the DLC that will be offered for Battlefield 3. Paying 50 ? for something I already was going to buy plus some extra swag seems reasonable to me.

So please, enlighten me. Why is this such a big deal? And for the record, all complaints are worthy ones. If you hate EA with a fiery passion, that's understandable and fine. If you dislike EAs copycat actions for the hunt for the almighty dollar, that is also fine. Just give me your view on why or why not you will buy Battlefield Premium.

If you want to read up on the case, here's two articles on the subject.

http://www.destructoid.com/ea-confirms-battlefield-premium-claims-you-are-excited-228353.phtml

http://www.destructoid.com/rumor-battlefield-3-s-premium-service-will-cost-50-228301.phtml

Captcha: Hmm, nut case. Well, darn.

 

[DustyDrB]

I can see why people would be upset, even though I don't play the game (or Call of Duty, or any FPS that isn't TF2).

According to a Destructoid article I read, people who buy the service get priority when trying to join a game over those who merely paid for the game new or used with an Online Pass that gives you access to the multiplayer. That's BS to me.

 

[Verzin]

I dislike DLC. no..scratch that. I hate it.

The whole DLC thing treats games like unfinished services. I like my games to be complete products when I buy them, and I like sequels/expansions to have the same or at least comparable amounts of effort and care put into their design. I do not believe that DLC allows for this. I feel that DLC is greed. pure, undisguised, unabashed greed.

Honestly..I've had enough of EA. After maintaining hope that they'd put out a few decent games for the last few years, these last few months have been my breaking point. I wouldn't have bought this DLC thing anyway, but I'm not even going to 'touch' it now. I'm going to try to never buy anything with an EA label ever again.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

First: it gives the subscribers priority when joining servers, directly and without question fucking over people who do not subscribe.

Second:

 

[Lordmarkus]

I can see why people would be upset, even though I don't play the game (or Call of Duty, or any FPS that isn't TF2).

According to a Destructoid article I read, people who buy the service get priority when trying to join a game over those who merely paid for the game new or used with an Online Pass that gives you access to the multiplayer. That's BS to me.

Yeah, that irks me as well. It is one thing to chip in on individual servers (Pc gamer here, so been there, done that), but getting priority on all servers is bullshit.

But as one who were going to buy all future DLC, 50 ? seems like a good deal alone.

 

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Dafuq? I thought bots made their own threads...

 

[The Madman]

"It also plays a vital part in making sure you, the players get proper value for the money you've invested in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. This is why these map packs are available at no extra cost, contradicting the industry standard and what our direct competitors are doing.... We're dedicated to taking care of this product for a long time -- helping you avoid 'mapathy' without getting nickel-and-dimed."

-DICE on DLC, source

Funny how things change.

 

[viranimus]

Basically because it should not exist because there is nothing to really merit the existence of the service.

Basically I have been saying this since last year or so (whenever the first leaks of ELITE first came out). This is precedent. As soon as one company shows any sort of financial gain for a horrible idea others will emulate it.

The thing that makes it bad is... periodic maps that you will run through in an hour 3-4 times a year at most does not warrant a monthly service fee.

Look at the level of content you get out of MMOs that are monthly service fee'd. What CoD and now BF offer are not 1/100th of what a standard MMO can offer. So there is no way to warrant paying the same sort of price you would pay for a P2P MMO. Its a horrible precedent and it has been set because people willingly bought into it.

Now, what you will see is more shooters emulate this to the point that it becomes standard operating procedure and once that occurs you wont be able to play it without having to pay for the right to play it despite owning the product. It will become little more than paying for the privileged of using something you already bought and own.

Yep, thats bad and it didnt take a lot of foresight to be able to see this is how this would progress. So people SHOULD be mad, and actually they should be making even MORE noise about this because this is just another step in the never ending penny nickle and diming gamers to death that is causing the entire industry to collapse in on itself that we will see within the next decade.

 

[DarkArk]

I dislike DLC. no..scratch that. I hate it.

The whole DLC thing treats games like unfinished services. I like my games to be complete products when I buy them, and I like sequels/expansions to have the same or at least comparable amounts of effort and care put into their design. I do not believe that DLC allows for this. I feel that DLC is greed. pure, undisguised, unabashed greed.

Have you even been paying attention to the BF DLC? They're not trying to fill in an incomplete game at all, they're adding on to it the way DLC should. New maps, better destruction, new weapons, new vehicles. I really don't see the complaint here.

What isn't clear to me is whether this is a recurring fee or not. If it isn't then this is a great way to get all the DLC on the cheap and people have no real basis for complaints. If it is an annual fee, then yeah probably won't be getting it.

 

[Syntax Man]

So wait, it comes with 4 new DLC packs, if anything like B2K that means they'll be $15 each, the subscription is $50...that adds up to $10 savings, why is this a big deal, priority server access? Many PC servers already have a system like that for 'donors.' Again, I don't see what all the fuss is about.

 

[Doclector]

"It also plays a vital part in making sure you, the players get proper value for the money you've invested in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. This is why these map packs are available at no extra cost, contradicting the industry standard and what our direct competitors are doing.... We're dedicated to taking care of this product for a long time -- helping you avoid 'mapathy' without getting nickel-and-dimed."

-DICE on DLC, source

Funny how things change.

Well, to be honest...you probably will get your moneys worth. Dice usually makes good DLC, and all this is is effectively a pre order for it, along with some mostly worthless, but shiny, swag.

I might not be able to invest that much at once, but I don't have a real problem with it.

 

[Terminate421]

I don't see how it is a bad thing really. It's just another feature which does not detract from the experience.

 

[The Madman]

"It also plays a vital part in making sure you, the players get proper value for the money you've invested in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. This is why these map packs are available at no extra cost, contradicting the industry standard and what our direct competitors are doing.... We're dedicated to taking care of this product for a long time -- helping you avoid 'mapathy' without getting nickel-and-dimed."

-DICE on DLC, source

Funny how things change.

Well, to be honest...you probably will get your moneys worth. Dice usually makes good DLC, and all this is is effectively a pre order for it, along with some mostly worthless, but shiny, swag.

I might not be able to invest that much at once, but I don't have a real problem with it.

Very well could be, I don't know. Still think it's funny however.

 

[MarlonBlazed]

You guys are all forgetting the most important counter as to why this is a bad idea.... It's that game you know the one, the game that likes to pretend its BF3 but is really the bastard child of BC2 and BF2, you know the one, the one that took out all the best parts of BF2, added some cool things and then watered them down to fit on consoles. If you can't tell I was hurt by this game so I hope you enjoy it longer then I did, for $62 extra you better.

60 bucks, that's a whole new game. 99% of all stand alone expansion packs are cheaper. Bah forget it, if you like it you like it you like it you like it, nobody's going to win voting with there wallets against something like this, that rarely works anyway. Things we should be pissed about is stuff like Dead Rising 2: Off the Records gamebreaker DLC not this.

 

[Xrysthos]

I dislike DLC. no..scratch that. I hate it.

The whole DLC thing treats games like unfinished services. I like my games to be complete products when I buy them, and I like sequels/expansions to have the same or at least comparable amounts of effort and care put into their design. I do not believe that DLC allows for this. I feel that DLC is greed. pure, undisguised, unabashed greed.

Have you even been paying attention to the BF DLC? They're not trying to fill in an incomplete game at all, they're adding on to it the way DLC should. New maps, better destruction, new weapons, new vehicles. I really don't see the complaint here.

What isn't clear to me is whether this is a recurring fee or not. If it isn't then this is a great way to get all the DLC on the cheap and people have no real basis for complaints. If it is an annual fee, then yeah probably won't be getting it.

Not an annual fee. If you play the game and plan on getting the DLC's in any case (and can afford to pay the lump sum for all of them at once) then it equates to a little money saved and some shiney extra stuff. As far as queue priority for Premium members go, that only applies to when there is a queue to join the server in the first place. Said queue is generally never more than a couple of people, and being a Premium member might save you a minute or two of reading the Escapist while waiting to join the server. Not really a big deal. In my mind, at least. Like someone already said, I prefer to think of it as a DLC pre-order with a couple of small bonuses.

 

[Zenode]

I gotta say I really dont see what the fuss is about, priority server access? So what queue's to get into servers are generally only 1-2 people long (on PC anyway) and you get all the DLC by paying 50 pounds, plus a bit more.
It's not a yearly fee or anything its essentially ordering all DLC for the year for 50 pounds.

 

[Dryk]

Buy game
Enter code for multiplayer
Pay for vehicle unlocks so you can compete
Pay to be able to jump the server queues
Get good
Get banned

It's like they're trying to make it as hard to get into as possible

 

[Elate]

I hadn't even heard about this until now, priority over others? That is a horrible, horrible idea, and frankly, I won't be playing BF3 anymore in that case. Doing that would basically mean I could be sitting for hours waiting to get on a server, since I play high traffic, fairly big infantry servers, which usually have a queue of more than 3.