Introducing Need for Speed World Starter Pack

[KammyworldRacerGT4]

Just look at what most companies do nowadays. All they want is money, money and more money. EA has been this kind of company since I remember.

All I can say is "Welcome to pretty much every industry in the world"

[Jinix]

Just look at what most companies do nowadays. All they want is money, money and more money. EA has been this kind of company since I remember.

All I can say is "Welcome to pretty much every industry in the world"

no, not really, what EA did is almost unethical, either call it straight up pay to play with free to try, or dump the cap and it goes back to free to play.

to be honest, not even Microsoft pulls such a pathetic response, i don't know what "every industry in the world" cause so far, the only other people that do this are Cable companies, banks, Phone companies, not software companies

i expect hidden fees from utility companies, not from games.

[ianism]

I'm honestly worried about this. I don't want World to be a failure, the game has potential,

i can glean a few things from this discussion. first, everyone in here is really disappointed that EA has done this, given that it was repeatedly mentioned that it'd be free and everyone's hopes that it'd do well, cause, you know, we're all fans.

technically, they haven't broken any promises: you still won't have to pay to play. there are just limitations on this now. it is understandable in that they do have to pay the people who, you know, actually MADE the game. that being said, EA as a big company could very easily shoulder 100% of the costs without any problem. this is really going to negatively affect people's attitudes towards EA (or, to be honest simply confirm them, as this kind of crap has been pulled a lot).

"Starter Pack"

it is worth noting the title of this pack. starter indicates to me pretty strongly that there definitely will be more of these.

but this things just keep players at bay, they don't encourage players to at least try the game. That's my opinion, at least.

obviously the idea of the game is to suck players in with the 'free' part and then once they get into it, charge them extra.

(this is speculation now...) the fact that you're getting an 'exclusive' car with the pack indicates that basically all the cars will be unlocked with the free download, and they'll add more as they release more pay packs. which is ok i guess. i'm thinking $20 as a price since that's how much you get in the thingymabobber

unfortunately, this is just another TYPICAL bull sh it move by the company which always takes it safe when it comes to economics. the people who actually develop this clearly care and are worth giving money to for their time and effort, but EA insists on repeatedly pulling this ridiculousness, alienating its core audience (us! - almost everyone here feels pretty annoyed eh?) upon whom the success - and failure - of the franchise ultimately depends.

sorry for the long post & peace!

[KammyworldRacerGT4]

And yet again, I'm going to have to bring up the point that this Pack stuff happens all the time with MMOs. I, for one, expected the announcement of some kind of pack regardless of the time being before or after the release of the final product.

I also find it interesting that you say that this is a typical move by EA but then say that the developers care and deserve the money. Those developers work for (who didn't see this coming) that same company.

[KammyworldRacerGT4]

Sorry for the double post, but I just got a hold of the Starter Pack's price.

$20 measly dollars, about the same as the price tag of a pre-owned PlayStation 2 game (where I'm from at least).

[ianism]

yeah. but they repeatedly mentioned that it would be free, so although what resulted is not technically going back on what they said, they misled everyone following the game.

i was merely making the distinction between what i perceive to be different points of view within EA. you can't look at it (or most other things) and assume that it is 100% united towards a common goal. there are inevitably going to be differing opinions on the best course of action. to me, in this situation the fans are dissatisfied with (upper) management people who work with the money and legal side of things and make decisions such as this, rather than the video game designers.
to an extent this is manifested in the division between publishing/development. the game has been/is being developed by EA Black Box and EA Singapore, and it's being distributed, marketed etc by the 'central' EA office. each of these have different employees, interests and so on.

[Bojan]

I have to say I don't like this business model either as for an MMOG it's too similar to regular games: play for a while, then pay a price that matches a game that's been on the market for a few months. I'd prefer a more subtle approach that on the other hand is not limiting the gameplay. In this case, sell exclusive bodykits, vinyl groups, spoilers. Have fees for creating official clans (which of course gives you extra features). Profile bling (like avatar clothes on xbox) etc. If you want something to make you stand out in the crowd, pay for it. But not limit anything related to game progression, like the fastest cars, the best powerups...
On the other hand, this game should be a good successor to Most Wanted and Carbon (which is something a lot of the players wanted), so with the starter pack you can actually get a good game pretty cheap.
The free-to-play marketing approach in this case was not the best idea though.