DAILY MANIFESTO

Revolutionary Rant: Battlefield 3 Pre-ordering Is a Mess

Posted on Thursday, August 4 @ 20:09:58 Eastern by Daniel Bischoff

Battlefield 3. Modern Warfare 3. Battlefield 3. Modern Warfare 3. As an adult, I don't have to choose between these two first-person shooter giants. I can go without food... or soap. There are so many things I could sacrifice to have the funds for both EA's and Activision's tent-pole Fall releases. That doesn't mean I'm set in my decision. If anything, it complicates the matter greatly. Let's focus on Battlefield 3 because Call of Duty is too busy planning an insane convention for itself.

Today, the Battlefield 3 blog detailed all of its retailer-specific preorder bonuses. The following bonuses can be found at entirely different retailers.

a weapon pack for one retailer
a multiplayer skin pack for another
and exclusive multiplayer dog tags for another
all preorders come with a DLC map pack
more still come with bonuses for the aptly named Battlefield Play4Free

Throwing another wrench into the details is the knowledge that certain pre-orders will come with early access to the Battlefield 3 Beta. Others won't come with access at all. What the hell is going on here? How did it come to this? Easily one of, if not the, biggest releases this Fall is now the most confusing purchase of my life. I'm already guaranteed to get screwed out of some piece of content.

Normally I'm pretty good at navigating these un-consumer-friendly waters. It's easy to pick out the preorder DLC with the most value. Let's face it, any time you're choosing between a bonus level or a multiplayer skin, you should know to go with the item that extends your gameplay.

Of course, Amazon will normally trump this entire debate with $20 credit towards your next game's purchase, but that hasn't happened yet.

So, having laid it all out for y---

F***, I forgot about Origin. EA's downloadable games service has certainly taken a sh** across the entire landscape of Battlefield 3 pre-order madness. The mega-publisher has complicated things to no end and we consumers are left with it sitting in our laps. What's more, not supporting this practice means that we miss out on something of value. We're completionists. We've got no choice but to admit it. That fervor for the 100%, the

complete and finished experience (not that that exists on launch day in gaming anymore) will be our ruin. As much as I hate everything about this mess, I'm not about to miss out on free DLC maps or a handful of bonus weapons.

We used to rush to retailers to buy a game on day 1 for a golden cartridge. GOLD! Back in the day preorders meant real value that could be traded on the open market.

So let me speak directly to EA: F***. C'mon, EA. I can't imagine developer DICE has very much to do with this nasty business. I can also understand that you probably don't want to announce that all of this DLC would become available after BF3 has been available for a month.

There's no precedent with you, EA. Maybe with Rockstar Games or Ubisoft or even THQ, I'd believe that everything on offer for day 1 purchasers would be available later, but you, EA, are an enigma. You've got no history of letting the entirety of pre-order DLC out in the wild, even with your Project $10 (or is it $15 now) plans. Why can't you make it clear to us? Let us know what's up!

What's the ideal solution to our problem? Let me know in the comments so I can let EA know what they should be doing, instead of making us all cross-eyed and stupid at the register.

Related Games: Battlefield 3

Tags: revolutionary rant, DLC, preorder, EA, DICE, Battlefield

Comments

tinymhg
Joined: Jun 2011

Posted: Aug 4th, 2011 at 10:21 pm
I don’t play Battlefield or COD (/smug), so maybe I shouldn’t comment, but to me all of those preorder exclusive bonuses sound, well, pretty lame. Buying at “any retailer will give you Back to Karkand” a free DLC, cool, but everything else is window dressing.

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Ranim
Joined: Nov 2005

Posted: Aug 4th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
Origin is a worthless piece of ****. Aside from chewing up twice as many resources as Steam, most of the parts that matter aren't even in the software, when you try to uninstall things it opens the uninstall window made into the OS. Truly it is nothing more than an over glorified Download Manager. That's not the worst part though. Two things kill it for me. If you don't log into it within 2 years you forfeit ownership of the games you bought on it, in other words you lose them. The other thing that kills it for me is that they've got the gall to charge 15 dollars for a couple of maps.

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Stickyellowsock
Joined: Oct 2009

Posted: Aug 5th, 2011 at 6:23 am
I just want to have the same content as everyone else. I don't really feel like we can do anything about it except lube our holes and pray that they be gentle. But when you are as big a dick as EA is there really is no gentle. The only thing you can hope for is that you pass out from the pain.

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used44
Joined: Mar 2002

Posted: Aug 5th, 2011 at 7:49 am
The weapon pack would be the obvious choice, but they unlock for all players later, and f*ck Gamestop. I just want the "Back to Karkand" content, which comes with all pre-orders, so I'm probably ordering thru Amazon, because yay Amazon.

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213EDD
Joined: Sep 2007

Posted: Aug 5th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
AGREED!

FUCK YOU FILTERS

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213EDD
Joined: Sep 2007

Posted: Aug 5th, 2011 at 12:23 pm
This ^

This comment is spam!

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OdiousLupous
Joined: Jul 2011

Posted: Aug 5th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Those of us lucky enough to posess the golden Zelda cartridge were leaders of men among our childhood friends. If we were in the town of the Children of the Corn films we'd have the sharpest, shiniest sickles with the most adult kill count among our cult.

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