Battlefield Heroes pricing changed, players upset

• by John Davison
• December 01, 2009 17:18 PM PST

Originally positioned as a free-to-play online shooter, Electronic Arts' Battlefield Heroes has undergone some major changes this week, and players are enraged by its new economy.

If you're not regular player of Electronic Arts' free-to-play online shooter Battlefield Heroes then you may not be aware of the controversy that is gripping the hardcore fanbase right now. Earlier this week, EA made some pretty drastic changes to the in-game economy of Heroes, and deeply affected players' perceptions of what the true cost of playing the game is.

For those of you unfamiliar with how the game works, it currently features two different kinds of currency; Valor Points (VP) which players earn by simply playing the game - they operate as a form of loyalty currency - and Battlefunds (BF) which are purchased with real money. Items in the game can be bought with either, but obviously one involves a time commitment whereas the other is a financial commitment, but is offers instant gratification. After EA's changes to the game, the value of Valor Points has been severely depressed, effectively forcing players to pay for Battlefunds in order to stay competitive.

In-game items have nearly all had their Valor Point cost increased, and some of the items can no longer be permanently acquired by this method. They are, instead, effectively "rented" by players for a three day period. These same items have had their Battlefund (real money) cost reduced as an incentive. Battlefield executive producer Ben Cousins explained in a community thread on the game's website that, "Our analysis of the VP economy showed us that people had lots of unused VP, which told us the prices for VP items were too low - hence the increases in VP pricing today. We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16 percent of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company."

Many players have expressed their concern about the new pricing structure on the game's official message board thread on the subject, and the underlying theme is that players do not want to be forced to grind through the game in order to continue to play for free. In fact, many note that this was one of the original selling points for the title. As Ars Technica's Ben Kuchera notes in his excellent analysis of the situation, the original trailer for the game actually mocked other titles that forced this kind of grind. The bottom line is that the game is no longer really free. The impact on the product for EA over the next few days could be disastrous. Many loyal players have already declared that they are giving up on the game, or at the very least sitting out for a while as they see how things evolve in the coming weeks. The development team have been quick to respond to players concerns, and there are already some signs emerging that the pricing will shift, but there's a steadfast adherence to the justifiable declaration that the team needs to see a sustainable business model for this endeavor. "It's highly likely [prices] will be adjusted as we've continued to change the ratio between Free/VP/BF since the beginning of the game," said Andreas Lanjerud from the development team. "Compared to other games out there, ranging from Windows games to Facebook games, we've had waaay low price/effort to get access to all of the cool content without barely even trying."

The discussion continues to rage on the game's forum (it's now at 58 pages of posts, and continuing to grow) and you can check it out here.

• Print
• Email this!
• • Digg
  • Yahoo Buzz!
  • FaceBook
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us