Gameguru Mania

ggrobot · Elite Member Joined: 28 May 2004 Posts: 53571

Gamasutra reports
that Electronic Arts aims to monetize game demos. According to
industry analyst Michael Patcher after an EA investor visit, the
publisher will start selling \'premium downloadable content\' prior to a
game\'s release for $10-$15 that is essentially a longer-than-usual
demo. Patcher said,

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Source: GGMania headlines
GGMania.com - Daily Gaming and Tech news

Aragor · Contributor Joined: 23 Mar 2010 Posts: 1

After EA's wonderful handling of the C&C4 launch, I think they should be trying to figure how to keep people buying their games, not trying to give us more crap. Just my thought.

th4t1guy · Senior Member Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 282

Day's of innovation are not over. Companies like EA make multi million dollar investments in their games. If they invested that kind of money into every innovative idea that landed on their laps, they'd go bankrupt quick.

It really just takes a smaller studio or someone with a large expendable sum.

Koogle · Elite Member Joined: 08 Jun 2004 Posts: 1362

nb411 · Elite Member Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 497

This is pretty sick. Pay to beta test. Then pay for intrusive DRM. Then pay for DLC that could and should have been a part of the game.

I can almost guarantee that NFS titles in future that have been 'beta tested' in his way will still be crap, and simply unplayably bad as before. I think it will just be used to generate screenshots and videos that people all agree look impressive and attractive so that the sheeple will line up around the corner to gobble their latest turd. I should buy some EA shares.

PoliticalMaestro · Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2010 11:40 am Post subject:

Cool for $15 i have the privilege to play a 3-4 hour beta demo, then email EA about the glitches and bugs, what a real honour, sorry i forgot to bring any lube with me... have any butter ?

How about we make it fair EA if you wish to charge us for beta demos then we will bill you for user quality control feedback, say $15 per bug ? If EA thinks it can create an new revenue stream during this depression then we can too.

You have to admit EA has big cahoonies to try and pull this off, but then again the console amebas are a captive audience.

psolord · Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2010 2:12 pm Post subject:

EA doesn't know where to stop.

Unfortunately there are millions of kids out there (and grown ups unfortunately), that lack the required perception skill to filter out bad games from good ones. So they just pay and the developers are encouraged to continue producing sub standard games with the blessing of their damned publishers.

Companies like EA have stopped selling games. They just sell PR nowadays. With the exception of some good ones of course.

Anyway, I may have gotten old and strange.

Tom · Elite Member Joined: 07 Jun 2004 Posts: 4289

EA sucks. Been saying it for a long time. Pay for demo's. I don't know what fucking retard would do that. Until EA can purge the retards coming up with these idea's, nothing will change with them.

amra · Junior Member Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 161

Pah, already starting to program my own games.
So these bitches can charge for whatever they want, I won't buy it ^^
As long as I can have for example 100 billion free flash games, why should I buy anything from them? DRM is sooner or later death... Big Brother isn't an option for anybody... and sooner or later people learn that the installation of such DRM is like giving away your keys, passwords and anything else on your operation system to thiefs. Permanent DRM-Rootkit Internet Connection needed, I call it PEDRIC from now on... so Big Brother has a name. whdat

Sabot · Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2010 11:25 pm Post subject:

Gee whiz! You can go back to the 90's when flight sims were rife and 'we' were asked then if we would pay for ongoing developement on a simulation -ie Falcon4.
It's NOT new.
However, it is when it's blatant exploitation of the punter -as is the case with EA. I'm afraid that wouldn't go down well in the EU, since anything paid for MUST actualy WORK and live up to expectations. A Demo would be an illegal term as it's a work-in-progress. That is why demos on magazines are actualy FREE and you pay for the mag itself -even if it feels like you ARE apying for the demo CD lol
EA would have to give everyone that paid for the FULL product, the same discount as what they paid for a non-working demo of it.
Serious implications and i doubt it will ever be realised.

Thudo · Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2010 7:51 am Post subject:

EA has truly sunk to a brand new low of skimming the consumer for purchasing beta products. Wow.. The label "Evil Empire" just hard to break.