Madden Downloadables

[4thHorseman]

I know the game comes out tomorrow, and I'm not sure how many of you will buy this, but I plan on being one of them. But I heard about this and it made me shake my head in disappointment.

Would You Like to Pay for Leaderboards and a Higher Difficulty? (http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/madden-nfl-10-charges-extra-for-well-everything/1342925)

Most games available for online consoles like the Xbox 360 and PS3 let players download special bonus content for a nominal fee.

But with a massive list of game-enhancing tweaks on offer -- many of which amount to little more than typical game cheats -- does the upcoming blockbuster Madden NFL 10 charge too much for too little?


Money, Money, Money, Money...Money.
Gaming blog Joystiq points out some of the game's quirkier downloadable items, which include everything from simple one-time enhancements (letting a severely injured player fully recover, giving all players a 10% stat boost for one play) to the more robust "Elite Status" download. For $5, Elite Status will let players "access exclusive VIP lobbies, leaderboards and play the all new Elite Gametype," which is essentially a tougher difficulty setting.

In other words, you'll pay $60 for the game, then an additional $5 if you want to enjoy the sum of its features.

That kind of nickel-and-diming has in the past proven irksome. Shortly after releasing their award-winning role-playing game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, publisher Bethesda unveiled their first piece of downloadable content: armor for a character's horse. Though priced at a meager $2.50, gamers were outraged at what was considered at the time to be an act of gouging them for extra cash for content that should have been in the game from the outset. Similar complaints were aimed toward game maker Capcom over a downloadable extra mode in their hit game Resident Evil 5, as well as EA for a $5 "unlock everything" cheat code in the skateboarding sim Skate 2.

Madden gets no extra money from me if this sticks.

[Chiasm]

I hadn't planned on picking up Madden this year after how bad last years game was and how buggy it was. By the time 09's bugs had been fixed I'd gotten sick of it and never really went back to it. So this year I bought NCAA 10 instead and found it to be fairly enjoyable. Then I started reading the reviews of Madden 10, most of which said this is the best Madden in years. And then I saw that Toys R'Us had it on sale for $45 and I gave in. I've only played 3 games so far but right now its far and away the best Madden in many years. The game play is great and finally you can see a real difference between great players and average ones and those ratings really mean something. All that said I agree with you that the price gouging EA is doing sucks and I won't support it.

[glue]

Meh...I looked at the crap the crap that you had to pay to download and I have no interest in any of it. Then again, I won't buy anything add-ons that aren't new levels/maps. $2.50 for some horse armor is dumb, but unless you HAVE to have it for the game I don't see the problem.

Speaking of ridiculous fees, has anyone bought Arkanoid Live and beat it? I'm wondering if you have to pay to download episodes 3 and 4 or if you just have to beat 1 and 2 to unlock them. I kinda want to buy the game, but I already thing $10 is too high, so if I have to pay twice it's a definite no go.

[Lester C.]

I bought 09 not too long ago and was shocked that the only thing the update did was give my game commercial ads when before they weren't any. I have no problem with in-game advertising but like with movies and television if such ads aren't subtle and organic to the story it pulls you out of the experience and you hate it.

[Astonishing X-Fan]

Well sports games do lend themselves pretty well to ads, seeing as how logos are plastered all over the place when you watch sports in real life.