Think i will wait until its not a beta

same, am suprised they aint charging for the patch the way the gaming industry seems to be going

Stan - Which game charges money for patches?

He's moaning about the mini Oblivion addons that cost money

to be fair i aint just on about oblivion, look at these "addons" for bf2 they are charging for, it use to be they gave you things like that to try and increase their userbase not just to get more cash out of you. No one as of yet charges for patch's but i can see it going that way if things keep on as they are.

Stan - What are expansion packs? They're a lot of content you pay for. ($30) What are booster packs? They're a little less content you pay for. ($10) What is a game? It's a ton of content and new gameplay. ($50)

What's the problem? It all scales correctly in price/content. BF2 gave you the Wake 2007 map for free and 2 unlocks for free.

if the content is there i aint got a problem with it, but in bf2 take a look at euro forces, ok it was only what 6 quid ?. But it only had 3 new maps and doesnt run on normal bf2 servers, thus that really limits the amount of people who play it and replayability. Having to pay £5 for something that should be in the game allready or in a patch i find shocking, and all these games that are coming out as episodic content that may only last 40 mins per part also worry me as i can see it costing you more than just buying the entire game. I remember when you use to get regular free updates like tfc or any number of things. Between this and the lack of optimisation games seem to have recently it worries me that the pc may get screwed over by the next generation consoles. I have no problem buying addons as long as they give you value and some extra content and long enough playtime to warrent the cash.
I am a hardcore pc gamer and i love pc games to bits but the things that made me love pc

I am a hardcore pc gamer and i love pc games to bits but the things that made me fall in love with pc games to start with seem to be going the way of the dodo, i was talking with Mork the other day and we both agree if things keep on going the way they are going with pc games most people will go to the next generation consoles. I would hate pc gaming to die but if you can spend 2k on a pc and still have lots of games run like arse cos they havent been optimised then people are just going to think i cba and go to the console where there isnt that problem. I dont want to seem like i am a grumpy old git, i am just worried about which way it will go.

BF2 booster packs hardly constitute a trend about pc gaming though. Let's not forget we're talking about EA here, with their FIFA half-yearly updates. Most games still release content free on PC, just look at the latest Galactic Civilisations 2 patch for example.

As for Oblivion mods, they're $2 which is the price of you not buying a can of coke and mars bar for one day or something ;o Plus Bethseda did give us the contruction kit which gives us hundreds of free fan made content.

As for the Oblivion mod, bug fixes look good, but i'll wait until it's non-beta

Why did you bring up PC vs. console gaming? I thought we were talking about paying/not paying for content. ??

I quit.

because the way i see it, if things keep going on as they are then people will go from pc's to consoles for games. I dont mind paying for something as long as the value is there, i agree with mal though about EA just trying to ripp people off with a slightly different version every year.

The way you see it you just looked past everything we were discussing. :/ You're already on the next subject. lol

I'll agree that EA is looking for profit. OMG! A company looking to make money?! If you don't like it, don't buy it. They didn't steal your money. (or did they?)

I stopped buying the Madden series football games from them for that very reason.

Apparently we disagree about how much value is in the BF2 stuff. Whatever.

The bf2 booster pack totally segmented the community and tbh has pretty much killed it, 90% of all ranked EU servers are empty by midnight now, 2 months ago we were at 50% full till 3am. That's a BIG problem.

Micro payments as MS call them on Xbox live do not sit well with PC gamers, can't imagine iD or Epic will charge for the content packs they release with QW:ET / UT 2007. Or how about Valve charging for the next CS:S map? Nope.

Yes we dont have to buy it, but lets be honest the vast majority of people are idiots and will, all you have to do to see that is look at the charts and see all the 1000's of sims addons are still in there. There is making a profit and then there is taking the piss, EA take the piss pretty much everyone knows this, every company needs to make a profit but as EA will soon see just putting out rehash sequel after sequel wont work, it will make them money in the short terms but i hope in the long term people will catch on.
I dont mind so much the little things in oblivion they charge you for as at the end of the day its your choice, but i do happen to think things like horse armour should have been in the full game not as a added extra at a cost. It isnt that big a problem at the moment, i am just saying if we aint carefull it could be very soon.

Since I'm an idiot (and I guess my wife is too for buying the Sims 2 and it's add-ons) I'll just live in my idiot world and buy my idiot products and not complain about things we have total freedom to do or not do.

Just for the record I don't think you're an idiot, Stan.

I aint saying the sim's 2 is a bad game [although it aint my type of game] but the fact that there are so many addons which imo dont offer much new and are constantly in the charts. I was using it as a example i dont mean that everyone who owns it is a idiot, but pretty much most reviews i have read on the addons state that they offer very little value for money. I am sorry if i offended you that was not my intention. Just because we can decide we dont want to buy something doesnt mean we shouldnt say if we think there is a problem with the product.

Also EA could kill their franchise by releasing sequel after sequel. Take BF2 not only the problems with the booster packs but if they release a new battlefield 2 game every year, then its the online community that will end up getting hurt because it wont have time to grow. These are the sort things i mean.

I totally agree with your last post. I don't think they should release a new BF game every year. (aka Madden and all their sports games) But they will and people will buy them and we'll all move on.

I agree with BF2 Yearly update thing. I think its just way too early. The thing is You cant keep supporting a game with no money BUT i dont want to keep buying a new game every year / crappy booster packs. There needs to be some kind of middle ground.
I think something along the lines of £5 a year to play on ranked BF2 servers, would easily cover new content for the whole year if even 1/4 of the community did it. And because everyone bums ranked servers i think it would probably catch on.