EA Sports Now Going Over The Top With DLC

Much has been discussed regarding Madden’s paid downloadable content and inclusion of advertising, but NCAA Football 11 introduces some paid DLC that is extremely questionable as well. The one I ran into last night? If you’d like to be a commish for multiple online dynasties you can now pay to do so. In order to commish an extra two that’ll cost $10, an extra four will cost $15. Or you can just pay $30 and get every bonus being offered for the game. This all of course is on top of the “Online Pass” requirement which was recently introduced for all EA Sports titles.

The “Online Pass” was created in part to cover online related costs. Don’t buy into the idea that online is a “value add-on” despite EA’s attempts to push that as the way it should be perceived. If consumers begin accept it as such then they will continue to expand on ways to charge extra. In fact, one of the first things EA did when describing the “Online Pass” was to mention how there would be free bonus content along with it. Not that people would be asked to pay for a variety of different bonuses. The argument that EA would need to account for the costs of hosting additional Dynasties is legitimate, however that is what the “Online Pass” is there for. EA knows everyone playing online has either bought a new copy or paid $10 to access online functionality.

I’ve never taken issue with a company’s tactics with DLC when they are purely optional. If someone wants to take the lazy way out and pay to advance in their own game then that is their prerogative. However when it breaches into the area of offering competitive advantages (Madden 11’s online scouting and OTP boosts) or starts removing boundaries that shouldn’t be there in the first place now given the Online Pass (limit of being a commish in one OD) that is where I take offense. I was okay with the introduction of the Online Pass, but it should be reducing DLC of this nature, not just acting as a bridge to more of it.