EA Scraps Battlefield: Bad Company DLC Plans

Following massive community backlash, Electronic Arts has scrapped plans for downloadable weapons in its upcoming multiplayer FPS Battlefield: Bad Company.

EA had originally planned to make ten weapons available only to gamers who purchased the Gold Edition release of the game, or who paid extra for them as downloadable content via Xbox Live . Fans responded angrily to the idea that EA was essentially blackmailing them by putting them at a disadvantage in online play unless they were willing to pay more money for the DLC, with many calling for boycotts of the entire game. EA attempt to defuse the situation by announcing that five of the ten weapons would be given away as part of a promotion, but had little success in calming the waters.

EA has now changed gears, telling GameSpot that the Gold Edition purchasers will still get the weapons out of the box, while everyone else can get free access to them by increasing their online ranking to the maximum level. "I should pretty much start at the end, we listen a lot to what people say out there. I think that's important to show, because we don't have time to comment on everything, because there's so much noise out there, but DICE is built upon the multiplayer community, and we do listen to what people say out there," said Battlefield: Bad Company Senior Producer Karl-Magnus Troedsson.

"When we saw this big uprise about people that really felt it was dissatisfying that some people bought the Gold Edition, those five weapons you couldn't get or that you had to buy if you had the ordinary version of the game, that we just decided that all weapons will be free in the game, and that's how it is now," he continued. "These Gold Edition weapons, we won't give away, you have to do something as a gamer. The Gold Edition guys and girls that actually buy that game will have some time where the weapons are exclusive, because if you don't buy the Gold Edition, you have to earn them. That means you have to rank up all the way to the top rank, which is rank 25, and then you have a massive unlock of five new weapons which are the same that are in the Gold Edition."

While Troedsson added that future DLC for the game is "not something that we're planning right now," an EA representative suggested the opposite, saying, "There's other content we're looking at after the game releases." Battlefield: Bad Company is currently slated for release in June 2008 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. More information is available at badcompany.ea.com.

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Huzzah! The entire project was sounding uncannily like 'WarRock' when EA announced the inclusion of 'buyable weapons'. Now they've been scrapped, the whole thing looks a lot more promising. Also: EA have actually listened to their community!?

Seems to me there was some talk about this elsewhere...

How about a little hint who startet all this? I mean come on...you linked Gamespot, Dice, EA and a bunch of other "biggies" but didnt even mention the site which was responsible for EAs/DICEs sudden change of opinion. Hey-don t get me wrong-I don t expect any standing ovations but I really think your little article would be more complete and informative If it included the information that most of that DLC hassle was started by a little online community ;)

If increasing one's online ranking has anything to do with competing against those who already have the extra weapons in order to earn the extra weapons, it still sounds like an disadvantage to those on a budget... but what do I know? It probably has something to do with the reason why I stopped playing Magic: The Gathering after about 2 months. I knew I had to get out of that game after some guy's $500 deck constantly beat my $50 deck.

Now, if only there was an MMO where I could buy the top level out of the box...

HuCast:

How about a little hint who startet all this? I mean come on...you linked Gamespot, Dice, EA and a bunch of other "biggies" but didnt even mention the site which was responsible for EAs/DICEs sudden change of opinion.

Maybe thanks to PA? :) Though I doubt they were the only ones to point it out.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/03/26/

Although this is a bit of a mess for EA, it is great to see them listening to their future Battlefield: Bad Company community.

But I don't think downloadable weapons is such a bad idea. They just need to work around it.

Definitely not two versions of the game. But having downloadable weapons would introduce realism - if that's what they are going for. I'm sure there are organisations out there with a choice. But only if they can't fit all the weapons on the original disc. Maxing out the weapons on the first release would be great.

Let's stick to downloadable maps for now.

Are these weapons really going to be worth 'earning'? Sounds awfully elitist if you ask me. A machine gun is a machine gun, a bazooka is a bazooka. What makes these extra weapons so shiny?

"A machine gun is a machine gun" doesn't mean much if the other guy has one and you don't. I'm really having a hard time understanding how someone at EA didn't see this kind of response coming a mile away.

EA have a hard time seeing most things. I know firsthand from being a player of C&C-Renegade (The C&C game no one talks about)

They're getting better, slowly. They've admitted shutting down westwood was a bad idea. Pity that doesn't bring them back.

Meh, why don't they just have the Super Deluxe 'McDonald's Assault Rifle' and be done with it. Everytime you get killed with it, the game makes you watch a ten second "I'm luvin it" commercial.

You could even mix it up a bit. Maybe have a Vioxx flame thrower for the older crowd who likes a gun that you just hold the trigger down and run.