I'm really intrigued by the Xbox rumors as well. Am I remembering wrong that they actually removed a processor from the original Kinect designs for cost saving that pushes some of the computation over to the 360 to do? I wonder how they'll get around the number crunching aspect of the Kinect to get it into a cheap, lower powered chipset.
I like this idea though - there will be a bunch of households who had Wiis because they were fun, low priced and got the kids off the couch who aren't willing to drop the money Nintendo will want for a WiiU but want something new and in HD. It seems like a console catered to picking up that audience is a pretty good idea.
I don't understand. Games have always had unlockable courses. Why is this any different? Are you pissed that you have to race through all the tracks in Mario Kart to unlock the others?
I'll let you unlock my response if you give me 10 dollars, but you can only view it temporarily.
Alternatively, he could ask you a few dozen times.
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
I think the issue with the Tiger Woods thing is not that you can pay to unlock courses. Old news. It's that you can unlock the courses temporarily by playing a bunch, or you can unlock them temporarily by paying, but to unlock them permanently, you have to have already "rented" the course and then you have to complete this crazy challenge while you have that course rented. It's a pretty obvious scheme to get people to pay coins to "rent" courses to try and complete the "Gold Challenges" to actually unlock them permanently, because you get one shot at that challenge while you have the course rented, and if you fail, it's either drop some cash to EA or spend another 3+ hours earning the coins in-game to rent it again.
Don't think of it as paying to rent the courses - think of it like your greens/club fees. Without a fee to play the course, the riff raff might get in with their rented clubs, tshirts and Walmart shorts and shirts. Eventually if you prove yourself worthy they gift you with a membership to let you play whenever you want - unless you made your avatar african-american - then you're out of luck.
Don't think of it as paying to rent the courses - think of it like your greens/club fees. Without a fee to play the course, the riff raff might get in with their rented clubs, tshirts and Walmart shorts and shirts. Eventually if you prove yourself worthy they gift you with a membership to let you play whenever you want - unless you made your avatar african-american - then you're out of luck.
I know its in jest, but considering this is a Tiger Woods game, the last statement is kind of so goosey it isn't even remotely humorous. It just sounds dumb.
It really is a deceptive scheme, but falls right in-line with what EA is currently implementing in all of their products: micro transactions. I really dislike the idea of micro transactions being present in single player games, especially after BUYING THE F****** game.
Also, has anyone seen the tv commercial for the Star Wars Kinect game? It reminds me of commercials that are made for action figures advertised to 6 year olds. "Be a jedi! Use real force powers! Defeat the evil sith!"
I still think you guys are all crazy. How many courses did the previous Tiger Woods game have?
e: Oh God I can't wait until Reddit gets ahold of this.
Tiger 12 had 21 if you bought the collector's edition, 16 if you got the regular edition. 15 DLC courses.
Ah okay. Yeah I don't have a problem with it then... But then again I don't play the games. If it was in a game I actually cared about then I'd probably get riled up as well.
It really is a deceptive scheme, but falls right in-line with what EA is currently implementing in all of their products: micro transactions. I really dislike the idea of micro transactions being present in single player games, especially after BUYING THE F****** game.
Also, has anyone seen the tv commercial for the Star Wars Kinect game? It reminds me of commercials that are made for action figures advertised to 6 year olds. "Be a jedi! Use real force powers! Defeat the evil sith!"
Coming soon: Madden 2013. $60 for the game. You get to unlock your first team for free. After that, each team costs $2, or you must clear Franchise mode with the first team to unlock 1 new team.
...well, this rumor's certainly on the wacky side:
Microsoft will have new hardware for gamers next year, but it won't be a next-generation console, according to noted anonymous Microsoft blogger MS Nerd. The information hound wrote on Reddit that Microsoft will ship a stripped-down Xbox in late 2013.
The blogger further posits that the ARM-powered console will focus on "Arcade-style games" and Kinect applications. The technology will be "price-competitive" with Apple TV, which currently retails for $100.
MS Nerd further suggests that the "true successor" to the Xbox 360 will ship sometime after, with the next revision of Kinect due around 2015.
A Microsoft representative issued GameSpot the following statement:
"Xbox 360 has found new ways to extend its lifecycle like introducing the world to controller-free experiences with Kinect and re-inventing the console with a new dashboard and new entertainment content partnerships. We are always thinking about what is next for our platform and how to continue to defy the lifecycle convention. Beyond that we do not comment on rumors or speculation."
Would this actually be a less-powerful 360 that could only run Kinect and Live stuff, or is someone just getting a little too excited over another slim remodel?
Well it would gel nicely along the rumors from a year or so ago about them launching a stop-gap Kinect-only console before launching their true Xbox 360 successor.
To me, however, that sounds an awful lot like the Sega Neptune.
Don't think of it as paying to rent the courses - think of it like your greens/club fees. Without a fee to play the course, the riff raff might get in with their rented clubs, tshirts and Walmart shorts and shirts. Eventually if you prove yourself worthy they gift you with a membership to let you play whenever you want - unless you made your avatar african-american - then you're out of luck.
I know its in jest, but considering this is a Tiger Woods game, the last statement is kind of so goosey it isn't even remotely humorous. It just sounds dumb.
I get you - it was meant in jest. I do find it kind of funny that they are going this route with the simulation of a sport that is so expensive to get into in real life. You can't help but wonder if they looked at the target market for Tiger Woods, realized that maybe their interest in golf equated to a certain age group, certain financial status, and would be the most willing to go for this method of unlocks/pricing.
You know, I get the complaints about the whole pay-to-sort-of-play thing. That's pretty shitty.
But I'm not sure I get the complaints about how things are unlockable anyway. Even if they are long and grindy. Especially in light of numerous games where folks complain about how damned easy everything is.
Oh, and this is the direction games are headed in. So enjoy!
You know, I get the complaints about the whole pay-to-sort-of-play thing. That's pretty shitty.
But I'm not sure I get the complaints about how things are unlockable anyway. Even if they are long and grindy. Especially in light of numerous games where folks complain about how damned easy everything is.
Oh, and this is the direction games are headed in. So enjoy!
Because they're SOOOO DIFFICULT. Never mind that they're not, people who don't even play the game say they are!
You know, I get the complaints about the whole pay-to-sort-of-play thing. That's pretty shitty.
But I'm not sure I get the complaints about how things are unlockable anyway. Even if they are long and grindy. Especially in light of numerous games where folks complain about how damned easy everything is.
Oh, and this is the direction games are headed in. So enjoy!
Because they're SOOOO DIFFICULT. Never mind that they're not, people who don't even play the game say they are!
I guess. I know EA has been doing something like this 'buy to make things quicker' deal for years now. But I know that they've also included the ability to get everything anyway, even if it isn't terribly convenient. (Not counting things that are strictly DLC, of course.)
I suspect people just want to return to the halcyon days of hating EA. Life was simpler then, I suppose.
You know, I get the complaints about the whole pay-to-sort-of-play thing. That's pretty shitty.
But I'm not sure I get the complaints about how things are unlockable anyway. Even if they are long and grindy. Especially in light of numerous games where folks complain about how damned easy everything is.
Oh, and this is the direction games are headed in. So enjoy!
Because they're SOOOO DIFFICULT. Never mind that they're not, people who don't even play the game say they are!
They're not? Have you played it? How much time did it take you to unlock one course?
Don't think of it as paying to rent the courses - think of it like your greens/club fees. Without a fee to play the course, the riff raff might get in with their rented clubs, tshirts and Walmart shorts and shirts. Eventually if you prove yourself worthy they gift you with a membership to let you play whenever you want - unless you made your avatar african-american - then you're out of luck.
I know its in jest, but considering this is a Tiger Woods game, the last statement is kind of so goosey it isn't even remotely humorous. It just sounds dumb.
Go back to like 1998 then and whine to Augusta, because that's exactly what they did for like 60+ years. No blacks or women allowed as members. It took Tiger Woods becoming a total force for them to change their policy.
I don't understand. Games have always had unlockable courses. Why is this any different? Are you pissed that you have to race through all the tracks in Mario Kart to unlock the others?
It's because there's the option to buy the unlocks.
this is quite a bit of content locked behind this system. It's incredibly time intensive, and they even made sure to debut a new system because the older one was probably too easy to do the challenges on.
Hypothetically, if you had to get 5 birdies on a course to unlock it, and you renting it only gave you a single shot at said course, and each attempt took you 3ish hours just to make... I mean, that's 15 hours for a single course, if you make no mistakes. Either in grinding for the coins or while actually attempting the challenge. That's also if they only require you finish a single challenge to unlock the course permanently. That pretty much makes it sound like several hundred hours of work just to unlock all the courses. I guess that's okay to some people? I don't think thats exactly reasonable as an 'unlock' mechanic, though.
chocobolicious on
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
...well, this rumor's certainly on the wacky side:
Microsoft will have new hardware for gamers next year, but it won't be a next-generation console, according to noted anonymous Microsoft blogger MS Nerd. The information hound wrote on Reddit that Microsoft will ship a stripped-down Xbox in late 2013.
The blogger further posits that the ARM-powered console will focus on "Arcade-style games" and Kinect applications. The technology will be "price-competitive" with Apple TV, which currently retails for $100.
MS Nerd further suggests that the "true successor" to the Xbox 360 will ship sometime after, with the next revision of Kinect due around 2015.
A Microsoft representative issued GameSpot the following statement:
"Xbox 360 has found new ways to extend its lifecycle like introducing the world to controller-free experiences with Kinect and re-inventing the console with a new dashboard and new entertainment content partnerships. We are always thinking about what is next for our platform and how to continue to defy the lifecycle convention. Beyond that we do not comment on rumors or speculation."
Would this actually be a less-powerful 360 that could only run Kinect and Live stuff, or is someone just getting a little too excited over another slim remodel?
Well it would gel nicely along the rumors from a year or so ago about them launching a stop-gap Kinect-only console before launching their true Xbox 360 successor.
To me, however, that sounds an awful lot like the Sega Neptune.
Neptune was the standalone 32X, right? That approach never made sense to me. So you make an expansion that requires the original console, alright. But then you later release that expansion on it's own? Who's gonna buy it? Anyone interested in the new tech adopted it when it was the expansion. Where's the market for these standalone release things?
(Well I guess the Neptune made a little sense since according to the AVGN, 32Xs just flat out didn't work.)
Oh brilliant
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
There was a brief period around the time when Mirror's Edge came out and EA acquired BioWare when people thought EA is turning a new leaf and stops being awful.
this is quite a bit of content locked behind this system. It's incredibly time intensive, and they even made sure to debut a new system because the older one was probably too easy to do the challenges on.
Hypothetically, if you had to get 5 birdies on a course to unlock it, and you renting it only gave you a single shot at said course, and each attempt took you 3ish hours just to make... I mean, that's 15 hours for a single course, if you make no mistakes. Either in grinding for the coins or while actually attempting the challenge. That's also if they only require you finish a single challenge to unlock the course permanently. That pretty much makes it sound like several hundred hours of work just to unlock all the courses. I guess that's okay to some people? I don't think thats exactly reasonable as an 'unlock' mechanic, though.
To be fair I have family members who spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours a year with a swing coach, and that's not even counting paying to actually play golf at a course or hitting a bucket of balls at a driving range.. Golf players are pretty insanely dedicated to their sport so maybe EA hopes it translates to their videogame.
There was a brief period when they 'stopped being evil' somehow. Something about a supposed willingness to nuture develpoment or whatever.
Still, old habits die hard. Weird enough in light of the fact that EA has been evolving this kind of business model for the last five or so years. Who knew Tiger Woods was such an important game?
(Also, Activision and Kotick kind of stepped up their Evil Empire campaign a bit. So EA was supplanted.)
this is quite a bit of content locked behind this system. It's incredibly time intensive, and they even made sure to debut a new system because the older one was probably too easy to do the challenges on.
Hypothetically, if you had to get 5 birdies on a course to unlock it, and you renting it only gave you a single shot at said course, and each attempt took you 3ish hours just to make... I mean, that's 15 hours for a single course, if you make no mistakes. Either in grinding for the coins or while actually attempting the challenge. That's also if they only require you finish a single challenge to unlock the course permanently. That pretty much makes it sound like several hundred hours of work just to unlock all the courses. I guess that's okay to some people? I don't think thats exactly reasonable as an 'unlock' mechanic, though.
No, not really.
Maybe with enough internet bitching about the ending, EA will announce that they'll look into ways to 'fix' it.
Still, old habits die hard. Weird enough in light of the fact that EA has been evolving this kind of business model for the last five or so years. Who knew Tiger Woods was such an important game?
Actually it sells really well, so yeah, I'd have to say it's fairly important.
There's this weird cycle between EA and Activision where one tries to be as terrible as they can be while the other goes into a sort of remission. We are in the part of the cycle where EA is at the worst.
...well, this rumor's certainly on the wacky side:
Microsoft will have new hardware for gamers next year, but it won't be a next-generation console, according to noted anonymous Microsoft blogger MS Nerd. The information hound wrote on Reddit that Microsoft will ship a stripped-down Xbox in late 2013.
The blogger further posits that the ARM-powered console will focus on "Arcade-style games" and Kinect applications. The technology will be "price-competitive" with Apple TV, which currently retails for $100.
MS Nerd further suggests that the "true successor" to the Xbox 360 will ship sometime after, with the next revision of Kinect due around 2015.
A Microsoft representative issued GameSpot the following statement:
"Xbox 360 has found new ways to extend its lifecycle like introducing the world to controller-free experiences with Kinect and re-inventing the console with a new dashboard and new entertainment content partnerships. We are always thinking about what is next for our platform and how to continue to defy the lifecycle convention. Beyond that we do not comment on rumors or speculation."
Would this actually be a less-powerful 360 that could only run Kinect and Live stuff, or is someone just getting a little too excited over another slim remodel?
Well it would gel nicely along the rumors from a year or so ago about them launching a stop-gap Kinect-only console before launching their true Xbox 360 successor.
To me, however, that sounds an awful lot like the Sega Neptune.
Neptune was the standalone 32X, right? That approach never made sense to me. So you make an expansion that requires the original console, alright. But then you later release that expansion on it's own? Who's gonna buy it? Anyone interested in the new tech adopted it when it was the expansion. Where's the market for these standalone release things?
(Well I guess the Neptune made a little sense since according to the AVGN, 32Xs just flat out didn't work.)
The neptune was a combination 32X-sega genesis. And actually, the release of something like that is paramount to universal adaptation. When you release an add-on console, should you want it to ultimately succeed and overtake the original console as the primary format, you need to offer something like that upfront to entice new users.
The idea is that you commit to a hard format shift. There are a couple of steps you need to take - first, you need to actually abandon the old format (i.e. genesis games) relatively quickly, within a year or so, so that there is incentive to switch to the new format. Ideally, you'd offer the add-on as a cheap way for previous users to upgrade to the new format at a lower price point, while you offer a stand-alone solution (which winds up replacing the base console without the add-on as the standard package) so that all newcomers to the system instantly have access to the new format.
This is the exact way the PC Engine Duo supplanted the PC Engine as the main format in japan, where the popularity of the PC Engine CD (an add-on) far, far, FAR outlasted and outweighed the popularity of the base system itself.
The problem with the neptune is that A) It wouldn't have been released close enough to the original 32X launch so that newcomers to the genesis still had to buy a 32X, and the successor to the 32X was already out. That's what I was getting at - if you want a format switch, you have to commit to your new format full force. Releasing an expanded model of an old format, while your new format is either right around the corner or already out, defeats the purpose. You cannibalize sales of each console. Essentially, every kinect-box is one less nextbox sale, and vice versa (because you should never base your model of success on expecting people to buy every single iteration of console you put out). You fragment your own marketplace.
Stop gap consoles don't work. They're just.... well, not very smart.
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DietarySupplementStill not approved by the FDADublin, OHRegistered Userregular
I don't understand. Games have always had unlockable courses. Why is this any different? Are you pissed that you have to race through all the tracks in Mario Kart to unlock the others?
It's because there's the option to buy the unlocks.
I know it's your whole "iOS mega man unlocks via IAP thing again" but it bears repeating: you don't have to buy it to get those courses. It's just an option.
Now if you'll excuse me, the laminating machine just finished warming up. Gotta go plastic-coat my new EA Defense Force card.
I don't understand. Games have always had unlockable courses. Why is this any different? Are you pissed that you have to race through all the tracks in Mario Kart to unlock the others?
It's because there's the option to buy the unlocks.
I know it's your whole "iOS mega man unlocks via IAP thing again" but it bears repeating: you don't have to buy it to get those courses. It's just an option.
Now if you'll excuse me, the laminating machine just finished warming up. Gotta go plastic-coat my new EA Defense Force card.
I know. That's why I said it's an option.
The shady thing about this story is that they made the content-unlocking via playing the game harder / more time consuming. They're trying to convince more people to buy unlocks.
this is quite a bit of content locked behind this system. It's incredibly time intensive, and they even made sure to debut a new system because the older one was probably too easy to do the challenges on.
Hypothetically, if you had to get 5 birdies on a course to unlock it, and you renting it only gave you a single shot at said course, and each attempt took you 3ish hours just to make... I mean, that's 15 hours for a single course, if you make no mistakes. Either in grinding for the coins or while actually attempting the challenge. That's also if they only require you finish a single challenge to unlock the course permanently. That pretty much makes it sound like several hundred hours of work just to unlock all the courses. I guess that's okay to some people? I don't think thats exactly reasonable as an 'unlock' mechanic, though.
No, not really.
Maybe with enough internet bitching about the ending, EA will announce that they'll look into ways to 'fix' it.
But a large part of the new design centers around getting coins, not just for packs, but for earning the privilege of playing on downloadable courses.
Unlike last year's title, you don't have to skip an event in career mode just because you don't have the DLC course; you can either change the course entirely or purchase rounds for the DLC course, with the carrot being that you can earn unlimited rounds on it by achieving Gold Mastery. The objectives for getting Gold Mastery isn't so much difficult—in fact, they are much more doable than before—as they are exorbitantly laborious. Earning Gold Mastery requires that you play through a course at least six times because one objective asks you to get 100 pars or better. So how many coins do you need to purchase six rounds of a DLC course? 24,000 coins. That's about 20 hours of work, and that's just 1 of 16 DLC courses. I'm winded just talking about it.
That's where the microtransaction model comes into play. The game makes it very clear that there's an option for you to spend additional money on coins. There's even a $75 transaction at a 25% discount for 280,000 coins. (You wanna buy the game over?) Perhaps it's too bold to accuse the developers for deliberately making the coin acquisition slow so that these microtransactions look that much more instantly gratifying. But it wouldn't be so troubling if these coins where used only to purchase clothing or something aesthetic, as they can be used toward boosts that can be applied to online tournaments. It just feels like there's a junkie selling "steroid" coins around every corner.
And one of the negatives in the Report Card area: Very slow progression system, very slow coin acquisition.
I think this just illustrates that there's a good way and a bad way to do in-game currency you can buy with real money. The good way is to offer it as an option to those who are impatient or willing to pay for an advantage, while those who play the game normally can get the same stuff with some time and effort. The bad way is to make the "free" way to unlock the stuff such a colossal pain in the ass that it makes ponying up the money seem like the only sane option. With at least a dozen hours of grinding per course for 16 courses, this game definitely seems like the latter.
It's weird -- EA seems to have games that do in-game currency really well and some horribly. I mean, Mass Effect Infiltrator lets you shell out varying amounts of money to give you an advantage, but I didn't and I managed to get to the end with the thing still seeming like an acceptably difficult, non-grindy game. I didn't mind the existence of the pay option one bit. And then there's this, which nigh-on forces you to pay. You'd think that they'd have some company-wide guidelines by now.
Curious now actually. One of the more annoying thing to me about old school JRPGs is the grinding. If I was given an option, a button press away, to pay $10 to level up 10 times, I wonder if I would resist the urge.
It is easy to resist with the iOS games that have no story. But $10 to skip hours of grinding...
...well, this rumor's certainly on the wacky side:
Microsoft will have new hardware for gamers next year, but it won't be a next-generation console, according to noted anonymous Microsoft blogger MS Nerd. The information hound wrote on Reddit that Microsoft will ship a stripped-down Xbox in late 2013.
The blogger further posits that the ARM-powered console will focus on "Arcade-style games" and Kinect applications. The technology will be "price-competitive" with Apple TV, which currently retails for $100.
MS Nerd further suggests that the "true successor" to the Xbox 360 will ship sometime after, with the next revision of Kinect due around 2015.
A Microsoft representative issued GameSpot the following statement:
"Xbox 360 has found new ways to extend its lifecycle like introducing the world to controller-free experiences with Kinect and re-inventing the console with a new dashboard and new entertainment content partnerships. We are always thinking about what is next for our platform and how to continue to defy the lifecycle convention. Beyond that we do not comment on rumors or speculation."
Would this actually be a less-powerful 360 that could only run Kinect and Live stuff, or is someone just getting a little too excited over another slim remodel?
Well it would gel nicely along the rumors from a year or so ago about them launching a stop-gap Kinect-only console before launching their true Xbox 360 successor.
To me, however, that sounds an awful lot like the Sega Neptune.
Something tells me you see the entire world in terms of Sega and Sonic products.
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I like this idea though - there will be a bunch of households who had Wiis because they were fun, low priced and got the kids off the couch who aren't willing to drop the money Nintendo will want for a WiiU but want something new and in HD. It seems like a console catered to picking up that audience is a pretty good idea.
Alternatively, he could ask you a few dozen times.
Twitter
Twitter
e: Oh God I can't wait until Reddit gets ahold of this.
I know its in jest, but considering this is a Tiger Woods game, the last statement is kind of so goosey it isn't even remotely humorous. It just sounds dumb.
Tiger 12 had 21 if you bought the collector's edition, 16 if you got the regular edition. 15 DLC courses.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Also, has anyone seen the tv commercial for the Star Wars Kinect game? It reminds me of commercials that are made for action figures advertised to 6 year olds. "Be a jedi! Use real force powers! Defeat the evil sith!"
Ah okay. Yeah I don't have a problem with it then... But then again I don't play the games. If it was in a game I actually cared about then I'd probably get riled up as well.
I think my copy of 2010 that I picked up over the weekend advertises 27.
You forgot "Dance to a YMCA parody!"
Well it would gel nicely along the rumors from a year or so ago about them launching a stop-gap Kinect-only console before launching their true Xbox 360 successor.
To me, however, that sounds an awful lot like the Sega Neptune.
I get you - it was meant in jest. I do find it kind of funny that they are going this route with the simulation of a sport that is so expensive to get into in real life. You can't help but wonder if they looked at the target market for Tiger Woods, realized that maybe their interest in golf equated to a certain age group, certain financial status, and would be the most willing to go for this method of unlocks/pricing.
But I'm not sure I get the complaints about how things are unlockable anyway. Even if they are long and grindy. Especially in light of numerous games where folks complain about how damned easy everything is.
Oh, and this is the direction games are headed in. So enjoy!
Because they're SOOOO DIFFICULT. Never mind that they're not, people who don't even play the game say they are!
I guess. I know EA has been doing something like this 'buy to make things quicker' deal for years now. But I know that they've also included the ability to get everything anyway, even if it isn't terribly convenient. (Not counting things that are strictly DLC, of course.)
I suspect people just want to return to the halcyon days of hating EA. Life was simpler then, I suppose.
They're not? Have you played it? How much time did it take you to unlock one course?
Go back to like 1998 then and whine to Augusta, because that's exactly what they did for like 60+ years. No blacks or women allowed as members. It took Tiger Woods becoming a total force for them to change their policy.
when?
It's because there's the option to buy the unlocks.
Hypothetically, if you had to get 5 birdies on a course to unlock it, and you renting it only gave you a single shot at said course, and each attempt took you 3ish hours just to make... I mean, that's 15 hours for a single course, if you make no mistakes. Either in grinding for the coins or while actually attempting the challenge. That's also if they only require you finish a single challenge to unlock the course permanently. That pretty much makes it sound like several hundred hours of work just to unlock all the courses. I guess that's okay to some people? I don't think thats exactly reasonable as an 'unlock' mechanic, though.
Neptune was the standalone 32X, right? That approach never made sense to me. So you make an expansion that requires the original console, alright. But then you later release that expansion on it's own? Who's gonna buy it? Anyone interested in the new tech adopted it when it was the expansion. Where's the market for these standalone release things?
(Well I guess the Neptune made a little sense since according to the AVGN, 32Xs just flat out didn't work.)
There was a brief period around the time when Mirror's Edge came out and EA acquired BioWare when people thought EA is turning a new leaf and stops being awful.
To be fair I have family members who spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours a year with a swing coach, and that's not even counting paying to actually play golf at a course or hitting a bucket of balls at a driving range.. Golf players are pretty insanely dedicated to their sport so maybe EA hopes it translates to their videogame.
There was a brief period when they 'stopped being evil' somehow. Something about a supposed willingness to nuture develpoment or whatever.
Still, old habits die hard. Weird enough in light of the fact that EA has been evolving this kind of business model for the last five or so years. Who knew Tiger Woods was such an important game?
(Also, Activision and Kotick kind of stepped up their Evil Empire campaign a bit. So EA was supplanted.)
No, not really.
Maybe with enough internet bitching about the ending, EA will announce that they'll look into ways to 'fix' it.
Actually it sells really well, so yeah, I'd have to say it's fairly important.
There's this weird cycle between EA and Activision where one tries to be as terrible as they can be while the other goes into a sort of remission. We are in the part of the cycle where EA is at the worst.
The neptune was a combination 32X-sega genesis. And actually, the release of something like that is paramount to universal adaptation. When you release an add-on console, should you want it to ultimately succeed and overtake the original console as the primary format, you need to offer something like that upfront to entice new users.
The idea is that you commit to a hard format shift. There are a couple of steps you need to take - first, you need to actually abandon the old format (i.e. genesis games) relatively quickly, within a year or so, so that there is incentive to switch to the new format. Ideally, you'd offer the add-on as a cheap way for previous users to upgrade to the new format at a lower price point, while you offer a stand-alone solution (which winds up replacing the base console without the add-on as the standard package) so that all newcomers to the system instantly have access to the new format.
This is the exact way the PC Engine Duo supplanted the PC Engine as the main format in japan, where the popularity of the PC Engine CD (an add-on) far, far, FAR outlasted and outweighed the popularity of the base system itself.
The problem with the neptune is that A) It wouldn't have been released close enough to the original 32X launch so that newcomers to the genesis still had to buy a 32X, and
Stop gap consoles don't work. They're just.... well, not very smart.
I know it's your whole "iOS mega man unlocks via IAP thing again" but it bears repeating: you don't have to buy it to get those courses. It's just an option.
Now if you'll excuse me, the laminating machine just finished warming up. Gotta go plastic-coat my new EA Defense Force card.
I know. That's why I said it's an option.
The shady thing about this story is that they made the content-unlocking via playing the game harder / more time consuming. They're trying to convince more people to buy unlocks.
There's a new kind of evil EA now.
Actually, chocobo's post is pretty accurate. From GameRevolutions review:
And one of the negatives in the Report Card area: Very slow progression system, very slow coin acquisition.
It's weird -- EA seems to have games that do in-game currency really well and some horribly. I mean, Mass Effect Infiltrator lets you shell out varying amounts of money to give you an advantage, but I didn't and I managed to get to the end with the thing still seeming like an acceptably difficult, non-grindy game. I didn't mind the existence of the pay option one bit. And then there's this, which nigh-on forces you to pay. You'd think that they'd have some company-wide guidelines by now.
It is easy to resist with the iOS games that have no story. But $10 to skip hours of grinding...
Something tells me you see the entire world in terms of Sega and Sonic products.