That's what happens when greedy investors are running a gaming “show”
How many times are we supposed to eat the same meat?!
Battlefield would make a great case study - Battlefield became CoD so much it's not even funny. I stopped taking this game “series” seriously after Bad Company 2

I love the game, but its infuriating to play at times. I cannot complete single player due to a persistent error and the multiplayer game crashes fairly regularly. Bought the original game and vowed never to spend on the DLC until its fixed …. one year later and still waiting.

Old confused gamer here.
First, we used to buy games and maps etc were free.
Then, dlc came in to existence and we had to pay for what we used to get for free.
Now membership?

I don't understand this at all.
“Those who purchase the new bundle will receive a Battlefield 4 Premium membership, which gives you twelve Gold Battlepacks filled with in-game content”.

So if you get the membership, do you have to renew next year? Do you lose access to the DLC after a year? Do you own the DLC? I am guessing battlepack = DLC. Arggh.. I just don't get this. I must be getting old.

What does priority position on the server mean? Am I right in thinking that if you pay out and buy the game, they actually shove these customers to the back of the queue unless you pay more?

Any one care to clear this up for me? Many Thanks

TaintedShirt
Old confused gamer here.
First, we used to buy games and maps etc were free.
Then, dlc came in to existence and we had to pay for what we used to get for free.
Now membership?

I don't understand this at all.
“Those who purchase the new bundle will receive a Battlefield 4 Premium membership, which gives you twelve Gold Battlepacks filled with in-game content”.

So if you get the membership, do you have to renew next year? Do you lose access to the DLC after a year? Do you own the DLC? I am guessing battlepack = DLC. Arggh.. I just don't get this. I must be getting old.

What does priority position on the server mean? Am I right in thinking that if you pay out and buy the game, they actually shove these customers to the back of the queue unless you pay more?

Any one care to clear this up for me? Many Thanks

You don't have to renew Premium ‘membership’, it's a one-off payment, which includes all the DLCs. As a Premium member, you get access to the DLCs a week earlier, & you get priority in queues to get onto servers, ahead of non-premium owners of the game.

The ‘Battlepacks’ are just a collection of in-game items like scopes for specific weapons, camouflage, dog-tags etc. You ‘earn’ them as you play the game, and they come in gold, silver or bronze types, according to the items they contain. Specific weapons can have battlepacks too, which contain items just for that weapon. I hope that makes it clearer? :)

Thanks for helping an old gamer out. Made it much clearer. :D

It's an extremely exploitative business model being employed by EA and a growing number of publishers.
I understand the model was born out of generating some profit for the IP owners on the resale market for console games, but as PC games cannot be traded in the same manner we were protected for a short while from these heinous tactics.
In all honesty EA have lost me as a customer for exactly that reason, and part of me really wants to finish Mass Effect but I stand by my guns

All the time people are dumb enough to stand outside Tesco at midnight waiting to buy these games, They'll know there be able to keep doing it, And people will keep buying it.

Apple's been doing the same thing for years.

It's mostly because of the premium edition of Battlefield 3 existing that I never bought BF4. I bought BF3 for XBox when it hadn't been out long, and then the basic version for PC later on when I had a rig that could run it. I bought premium for BF3 later on, thinking it'd save me money over buying all the DLC separately.

When BF4 was released, I realised I'd barely used most of the DLC, but had dropped about £90 on BF3 in total. There was no way I was buying BF4 on release when I'd already spent that much. Now the hype's gone away, I'm not sure I need to buy it at all.

TWENTY NEW MAPS :D :D :D :D :D :D

I reckon thats going to include all the good ones from BF3 which makes me happy.

TaintedShirt
What does priority position on the server mean? Am I right in thinking that if you pay out and buy the game, they actually shove these customers to the back of the queue unless you pay more?

Essentially what this means is that if a handful of players were waiting to join a full server then those players with premium memberships will be able to get in ahead of any non premium members waiting in the queue, even if the premium members were the last to join the queue. This sounds like a great feature but as far as I can tell the only people that are still playing BF4 now are those players that have signed up for the premium service so this might not work out to be such a useful feature now.

Biscuit
TWENTY NEW MAPS :D :D :D :D :D :D

I reckon thats going to include all the good ones from BF3 which makes me happy.

Eek! I wonder how many GB it will be though…not sure my SSD will be able to accommodate it!

Wait a minute, I'm confused about something. What happens with existing Premium members, do we get the final assault pack when it launches or will we have to buy an upgrade?

Im pretty sure we get it as usual. This is just them bundling premium with the game at a lower price to try and sell a few more copies.

KeyboardDemon
Wait a minute, I'm confused about something. What happens with existing Premium members, do we get the final assault pack when it launches or will we have to buy an upgrade?

Not sure why this is so confusing - this concept has been around since Battlefield 2.

They bring out the main game and then the expansion packs (now called DLC, were also called booster packs) - once all were released they would bundle the game and all expansion packs together.

So 8 years on, they are still doing the same.

I paid £30 on launch for BF4 , inc China Rising and then 6 months later £20 for the premium package/access. Frankly I find the battlefield games brilliant value considering the number of hours I will play it over its life. Apart from some minor quirks here and there, the game works well and graphics on ultra are stunning.

I think there is a little mis-information here. Final Stand DLC will only bring 4 additional maps. Bringing the total amount of DLC maps to 20 in the premium bundle (4 from each other DLC - China Rising, Second Assault, Naval Strike and Dragon's Teeth). The original game had 10 maps, So BF4 will sail into the sunset with 30 maps. One more than BF3 finished on.

Brewster0101
Not sure why this is so confusing - this concept has been around since Battlefield 2.

They bring out the main game and then the expansion packs (now called DLC, were also called booster packs) - once all were released they would bundle the game and all expansion packs together.

So 8 years on, they are still doing the same.

I paid £30 on launch for BF4 , inc China Rising and then 6 months later £20 for the premium package/access. Frankly I find the battlefield games brilliant value considering the number of hours I will play it over its life. Apart from some minor quirks here and there, the game works well and graphics on ultra are stunning.

Saying I am confused was not quite what I meant, concerned would probably be closer to what I meant, having not gone through several BF iterations, at least not completely, I am not really aware of the history of these games. I did have BFBC2 but didn't bother with getting all of the DLC, same with BF3, I did get some DLC but stopped playing before my lack of DLC became an issue. My main concern with BF4 was that the new DLC pack would be something I'd have to pay for as it was not listed as part of my original Premium package.

Having just looked at the Origin pages to add Dragon Age:Origins to my account I can see that I will indeed be getting the Final Stand DLC as it is listed in the Origin Store and it is shown as unreleased in my Origin account.

Im really worried that Bf4 are going down the route of cash grabbing like activsion , BF3 was fantastic however BF4 really didn't excite me as much.