st_dux

The fact that nature is so complicated points to intentional creation by a Godlike being. (or perhaps both are examples of confirmation bias)

There is no NWO; there is no master plan. Western government is just fundamentally flawed in its design; the incentives for individuals operating within it are all wrong. That's the problem.

Actually, J.R.R. Tolkien intended that The Lord of the Rings be a single novel. It was the publisher who later decided that it would make more economic sense to market it as a trilogy. Even if this weren't the case, though, the analogy and the point it brings forward are still perfectly valid: The amount of content in any creative work, be it a film, a book or a video game, is essentially arbitrary and not in any way attached to the way in which it is marketed. Rather than look at day-one DLC as content that ought to be free, think of it as bonus content that wouldn't exist at all if it couldn't be sold for extra. If the content didn't exist at all, would the game honestly feel incomplete? If the answer is no, then I don't see how any legitimate complaint can be made about the DLC. Simply being made at the same time as the core game does not imply that it should necessarily be part of the core game, just as the the filming of The Two Towers at the same time as The Fellowship of the Ring does not imply that they should have been released together.

To be honest, no, I haven't really done my homework on this law; I was basing my post on the news snippets posted here. If a warrant is required to access the content of communications, this isn't as bad as I originally thought, although I am curious as to how one can monitor traffic without accessing any content.

Even if the immediate effects of the law are rather innocuous, a blanket warrantless spying law, which is what this sounds like, sets a very bad precedent. Law enforcement without judicial review is fascism, pretty much, and this is always how that door is opened. As the parable goes: Raise the temperature of the water slowly enough, and the frog won't realize it's being boiled alive until its too late.

What am I taking out of context? I get why some people are upset with some of the ways in which the game industry sales model is evolving -- I even share your disappointment occasionally, as in the case of true PayToWin models, which I strongly dislike -- but this sense of entitlement that gamers have when it comes to how a developer can be allowed to sell its own product is way over-the-top. Some people, as surprising as this may be, actually don't mind DLC. They're not terrible people, and EA isn't a terrible company simply by offering it. The idea that game companies should only be allowed to sell their products at "a fair price" or face forced closure (as has been suggested in this thread several times) is absurd: What is fair is determined by what the market will pay, not the other way around. If you don't think DLC is priced fairly, then by all means, don't buy it! Your opinion on the fairness of the price, however, does not give you the right to force EA or any other company to charge a different one. Anyway, I didn't mean for this tangent, which started with BF3 DLC, to form its own separate line of discussion, so I'll leave it at that and let the thread continue on about BF3 proper.

What's with the rational thought? Don't you know that DLC is evil? If you support EA's greed now, tomorrow they'll be charging you $1,000 for a map pack that should have been included in the original game!

Sometimes it might be a lie, but other times it may simply be a misinformed producer or a legitimate development plan that was changed later in the process. It's impossible to tell, and none of the examples that have been brought up in this thread meet the legal definition for fraud and/or false advertising. That's my sole point. I'm neither defending BF3 as a good game (I don't know) nor absolving BioWare's handling of the ME3 ending (which was terrible).

@Tonci87: Having bought and played through Mass Effect 3, I am more familiar with that example, and I can tell you with complete confidence that the ending fiasco -- while indeed a fiasco in several ways -- does not even come close to anything that might be accepted as a reasonable false advertising claim in any court. Believe me, I understand the frustration, but to take it to the next level and claim that this constitutes a fraudulent business practice is frankly ridiculous. All it really represents is bad writing and a producer who misspoke one time in an interview.

You know you really don't need to provide that much information to use Facebook, right? I'm pretty sure all that is required is a name, an email address and a birthday (the latter two you can then hide); the rest is optional.

@gammadust: I have no idea how to explain EA's recent stock price history, but assuming it is related to the quality of BF3, it would seem to me that the market is working. Is that not enough? As for false advertising, I don't know enough about the divergences between what EA promised and what was ultimately delivered to make a perfectly sound judgment on it without additional information, but I do know that in order to make a legitimate false advertising claim, you have to show that there is a truly substantial difference between what was advertised and what you received. Judging from BF3's critical reception, it would seem that no such difference exists. Even user ratings, which are notoriously slanted toward the negative as people wishing to complain generally have louder voices than those who are content, are generally favorable at a variety of websites. How is this possible if EA made the grand deception that you claim it did? Is everyone else just a blind food?

That's a neat theory, but it implies that every game company in existence is actively colluding in order to artificially keep prices high and remove any possibility of a superior business model being practiced. To say that this is unlikely would be a a massive understatement; it is far more likely that the evil DLC model just straight-up works better than present alternatives. The fact is that Joe Regular really just doesn't care that much about the so-called ethics of day-one DLC or micro-transactions (this is solely the domain of internet preachers), and because the extra money involved on his end is really quite trivial (about a couple of beers worth or less in most cases), he's happy to pay a few extra bucks to get some cool shit.

It's not some abstract theory. The consumer base is accepting it. That's why these practices persist. $60 new games, day-one DLC, micro-transactions... all of it has been accepted by virtue of the fact that people (lots of people) buy it. If it wasn't profitable -- if it were more profitable to charge $50 for a game that includes what would have otherwise been day-one DLC, for example -- then game companies wouldn't engage in these business practices. They engage in them because they work. You can rag on it from a perceived ethical perspective all you want (Lord knows that internet critics love to), but the fact of the matter is that it makes money, and until it doesn't, it will continue. I personally don't see the point in getting all bent out of shape about it.

Absolutely, and I encourage people to do so. If enough people feel that EA's (or any other game company's) current business model sucks, there's no doubt that they would be compelled to change it. That said, I feel that the calls for legal action and punishment in this thread are indicative of the fact that this is a matter of a disgruntled vocal minority without the power to create any appreciable shift in the market (there'd be no need for legal action if they could). The fact that there are millions of happy customers plugging away at games like CoD (games that I personally don't really care for, by the way) demonstrates pretty conclusively that the big bad game corporations may actually know a thing or two about how to appeal to their customer base.

Whether or not any particular game is good is not at issue here. I don't even own BF3 myself, so I can't speak to its quality. My point was simply that charging slightly more for games does not suddenly turn a game company into a greedy bastion for fascism devoid of creativity. EA is charging what it thinks will garner the highest profit from its target market, which is a reasonable business practice that rightfully appeals to the interests of their stockholders. Are you being serious? For your fraud accusation to be even halfway legitimate, EA would have to have released something completely different from what was advertised, not something that is essentially what was advertised minus a few minor features that you and a handful of others were really hoping for. Maybe if when you purchased BF3 you actually got a copy of Dora the Explorer's Interactive Adventure, you'd have a point. As it stands, there is definitely no potential for legal action here; to think otherwise is patently foolish. (emphasis added) EA is a publicly-traded corporation, which means that they have an obligation to their shareholders to maximize profits. For them to just "be happy" with the profits made from the initial product without making any attempt to make more would be irresponsible and unethical from a business perspective. If you don't like this, I recommend moving to a non-capitalist country. I hear that North Korea has a booming video games industry.

The line in the sand that you're drawing between "a mix of creativity and capitalism" and "unbridled greed" is completely arbitrary. These "half games" selling for $60 are extremely popular; clearly, the model is being accepted by consumers.

Agreed. That's why I'm glad that there are no legal restrictions on "hate speech" in the United States -- unless you're actively threatening someone or seeking only to incite violence, you can say whatever you'd like. If someone is spouting racist commentary that the majority finds deplorable, why does it need to be illegal? The marketplace of ideas will sort itself out.

I'm very happy that such bullshit restrictions on free speech do not exist in my country. As long as you're peaceful about it, you can publicly hate whoever you want here, as it should be.

It was stated by at least one BioWare producer, but it's also fairly self-evident once you've been playing the game for a while (as I have). Trust me, MP is 100% optional, and it does not diminish the SP experience.

I'd say that the real issue is much bigger than Joseph Kony. Also, on one particular part of the video: I found it interesting that the filmmaker makes a point of Kony's lack of "a cause": "He's doing this just to maintain his own power; he's not fighting for anything else." The unavoidable implication here is that abducting children to be used as warrior-slaves is particularly bad if you're not fighting for "a cause," and the unavoidable corollary to this is that if you DO have "a cause," the use of warrior-slave children becomes at least a little more acceptable. And here I was thinking that the use of children as warrior-slaves is something that's just categorically wrong...

Is the demagogy really necessary? No one is joking about the crimes. The joke is about the fact that the only thing unique about this particular African warlord is that he's become popular to young and idealistic white Westerners through a viral marketing campaign while atrocities like those perpetrated by him have been a regular occurrence around the world throughout history. Of course we should work to fight things like this, but awareness campaigns like "KONY 2012" are hollow and oversimplified affairs that typically serve only to make supporters feel better about themselves.

As I stated in an earlier reply, you don't need to do any of the MP stuff to get a perfect ending in SP. Putting hours into MP (you never need to buy extra stuff) just means that less side quests are required for a perfect SP ending, but you can of course still do whatever you want.

In response to the video: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/23/18-awareness/

You don't really need it. Getting good "war assets" in MP just means that you don't have to do as many side quests in SP. According to the producers, if you are a completionist, you should have no problem succeeding fully in SP alone. The MP is actually pretty fun, though.

This is a ludicrous slippery slope argument. Games won't be costing hundreds of dollars anytime soon because no one would buy them if they did. A $10 optional DLC on release is not indicative of a an impending massive price increase, and as I said before, it's really about time for a small price increase. We can't expect games to stay $60 forever as long as inflation is a reality. EA is a for-profit company. They have a responsibility to their shareholders to maximize their profits; it would be irresponsible for them to intentionally ignore the profit that can be gained through DLC. You might not like this, but it is an essential feature of capitalism. The content is still being made optional regardless of whether it was developed before or after the decision to make it DLC. Would you rather it be included with the "original game" and made mandatory (along with its $10 price tag)? This whole idea that the game developer somehow owes you whatever content was developed before the game is released -- regardless of the quantity of that content -- for the arbitrary set price of $60 (for a AAA title) is ridiculous. If the DLC were exactly the same but released a few months later, how would that be any better? How is offering day-one DLC fundamentally any different from game developers charging the same amount of money for games of varying levels of content? If you're really having an ethical crisis over supporting day-one DLC, I recommend simply pretending that the content doesn't exist. After all, if ME3 were released exactly as is without the optional DLC, I'm sure that no one would feel that it was lacking in content for its $60 price tag. The only reason you feel entitled to the DLC content is because you know that it exists. Then the price would effectively not be going up at all. My point is that it's really not unreasonable for game prices to be rising at this point, and it's better for gamers that it is in the form of an optional increase at first rather than a mandatory one.