I'd just like to also point out that 2k better not release actual map packs... can't have the multiplayer community be split.
The PR girl who wrote that post is an idiot. The second you release ANY new maps -- it doesn't matter if they are on the disc or if they are DLC -- then you have split your multiplayer community into the 'haves' and 'have nots'.
This was a huge problem with Battlefield 2, where 90% of the players never had any of the three expansion packs. It didn't hurt the game at all, but it did make it hard to find a game if you wanted to play on the new maps.
I see the same thing in Killzone 2 -- the bulk of the players don't have the new maps and you hardly ever see them being played online. Which is a shame because some of those maps rock.
__________________ We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.
This kind of foolishness will absolutely have business repercussions. Customers are not a right.
Yes, it will, but it is to the benefit of game developers if the customers are retrained on their expectations.
Again, it's either lose customers, losing X revenue, because you decide to save money by putting extra content on the disc with the original game, or lose Y amount of money from bandwidth, hosting, and other solutions for content delivery that become a MAJOR hassle if you're running a yearly franchise.
2K believes X is smaller than Y.
Also, vocal minorities have a way of skewing the actual perception. If you had 1,000 people as customers, and 990 didn't care for it, but 10 vocal haters were all you heard from, it's hard to tell just how acceptable the policy really is.
Yes, but the real question is whether the vocal minority actually has a point or not. Because the majority's sympathies will eventually rest with either group. And more often than not the vocal minority ends up shaping the perceptions of the larger group and having a disparate impact on the industry. That's why companies bother paying people like Teecakes to astroturf.
You missed the part where all unlock codes are 108k. This isn't new 'code' at all, this is a piece of pre-written Microsoft code that unlocks content that was previously on the disc.
No development went into that 108k, it was something they got from MS.
That point wasn't directed to this specific instance; it is clear what this code did. My point is that, in general, merging 108k of code could constitute a very large change in functionality in the sense of a 108k patch.
