News - EA to generate $1 billion from add-on content sales this year

[HEXUS]

Those DLC packs and in-app purchases are really popular.

Read more.

[Pleiades]

Ugh

[Noxvayl]

At least the advert was entertaining... I tend not to waste money on EA games, too many good games out there that deserve my money. There are exceptions of course, Humble EA Bundle for example.

[shaithis]

EA might as well go exclusively F2P.

[BrandonP]

This is one of the reasons I dislike EA........

[crossy]

A has high hopes for its digital add-on content sales this year, especially its sports series DLCs. Madden NFL 15 and other EA Sports titles are expected to be "major" contributors to earnings

Suits me, if you're dumb enough to obsess with these sports titles then you may be deserve to be fleeced. Especially US football, which is just an excuse for adverts as far as I can tell. Not like proper football, it's called the "beautiful game" for a reason.

That said, is it me or are EA's F2P titles getting pretty "in your face" about IAP's? I got PvZ2 and it's forever trying to get me to pony up more money (having shame-facedly bought one upgrade pack).

[aidanjt]

Not from me, they didn't. The last EA game I bought was Dragon Age, and that's only because it was on a steam sale.

[Ttaskmaster]

I generally won't touch EA, except for Dragon Age and Mass Effect... maybe if the On The House is any good...

[big_hairy_rob]

Wait for "game of the year" edition with all extra content included. Doen't download "free" games deliberately slowed down to encourage you to spend. Simple!

[GuidoLS]

Hate the practice with a passion - especially IAP and the F2P scam, but as long as people are willing to pay (to the tune of a billion USD...) there won't be any change - there's no impetuous to change, UK rulings or not. Until either a larger scale EU dictate comes down, which is across the board for all companies, or there are some successful, very large scale class action lawsuits here in the US, EA and similar companies are going to continue with the trend.

[valhar2000]

This is extremely disappointing. It will only encourage EA to get worse, and other publishers will follow suit. And here I was hoping that EA would finally go under!

[Chadders87]

EA might as well go exclusively F2P.

You mean P2W?

[Noxvayl]

Pay to Win (P2W) is slowly declining due to gamers not playing those games in the numbers required to be comparable to other successful Free to Play (F2P) titles. The driving force for publishers is to make as much money as possible and their shareholders are unlikely to be forgiving when another company doing F2P the right way is out performing them. P2W has very few supporters, even within publishers who are constantly trying to find the line at which consumers stop playing a game because of too much in game purchases preventing progression. EA has adjusted its attitude towards F2P as a direct result of gamer backlash at the shocking implementation of P2W in Dungeon Keeper. EA must of noticed how many people paid for the old game rather than use the mobile monstrosity and I expect their offerings to slowly get better over time.

I do feel that the F2P genre is an exploitative entreprise that consumers need to be wary of. I don't play any F2P or P2W titles because I prefer to pay for all the games content one time and then use it as and how I please; I am getting the same, if not more, satisfaction out of that than I was when playing the likes of Team Fortress 2 and League of Legends. As a result my backlog of purchased titles has grown to the point where I have yet to play all the games I own at least once in the last 3 years. I have owned one game for more than a year now without opening the plastic wrapping on the box... I don't see me going back to Multi-player gaming any time soon, it isn't as enjoyable for me anymore. Co-op is currently the closest I get to multi-player and I am thoroughly enjoying Borderlands 2 at the moment, thank you Steam sales