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Electronic Arts promises investors to nickle and dime Spore players
In case you were worried that Electronic Arts hadn't learned anything from its ongoing attempts to balkanize The Sims 2 with eight expansion packs, nine "stuff" packs, and online micropayments for meaningless shreds of content, fret no more! They have indeed learned something and they'll be putting it into practice with Spore. They've learned that you're not going to do a damn thing about it.Speaking in an investors' conference call, [CEO John Riccitiello] said he'd be keen to "monetise, if you will, body parts, plant parts, car parts and planets as a way to generate incremental revenue on an installed base of several million active users".
Thanks gamesindustry.biz.
By Holy Crap! at 10:31 PM ON 07/31/08
bastards.
By jab at 12:38 AM ON 08/01/08
There are "stuff" packs for the sims now? I guess the time of game makers giving away content for pc games is coming to an end soon. That really sucks about Spore , as the parts make up the entire creating experience. I can't wait to see how much EA is going to charge for it.
By Sinister Duck at 10:43 PM ON 08/01/08
I haven't played an EA game in years. I guess that's not gonna change now.
By Allura at 9:46 PM ON 08/02/08
re: JAB
Sims has had "stuff" packs for a while, but at the same time they made it easier to get free custom content for others. A lot of the best custom content, though, is no longer free anyway, due to bandwidth costs. The stuff packs can be a good deal, if they match your interests; I've bought some, and some are just dumb (like the H&M clothing themed one).
By Mulligan at 2:54 PM ON 08/04/08
This isn't true. There won't be microtransactions for body parts. There was a press release by EA on April 2nd after Gamasutra erroneously said this in an article. They misunderstood that there will be additional merchandise, such as 3-D rendering of your creatures, which will be available for a price on the EA website.
By Tom Chick at 4:30 PM ON 08/04/08
Hi Mulligan, I hope you're right, but I haven't seen this press release you're talking about. Do you have a link? Furthermore, the investors call quoted above was considerably more recent than April 2nd and it's straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
By Leigh at 10:49 PM ON 08/04/08
To ALLURA:
I'll have to contest that. A lot of the best content IS free, mainly on fansites. The fabrication that custom content that costs money "must mean it's the best of the best" is not nearly true, and even in some cases bandwidth isn't what's being covered when it comes to paying for downloads.
I wouldn't have put this over EA at all. (Look at the beta version of the Sims 2 Store for example). They plan on sucking their consumer resource as much as they possibly can. Needless to say, they won't be getting a dime, nickel, or penny from my wallet.
By Mantees at 6:32 AM ON 08/19/08
What is worst is that, if this is true, this time I might be one of the people giving them the money -_-
Mantees:
What is worst is that, if this is true, this time I might be one of the people giving them the money -_-...More »