I know this is a slippery slope, but EA's been sliding down it for a while now...
I still believe there will come a time when you will buy a basic shell of a game, with no textures, barely any guns and no storyline, for $100 - but there will be a texture pack for $20, a gun pack for $15 and a story pack for $30.
It seems ridiculous now, but considering the cost of new consoles today, the cost of gaming on them has become ridiculous. The one thing gaming did was it leveled the playing field. Sure, your buddy may have 10 more titles than you do, but you could dominate in the one football/fighting/action game you had. You didn't have to have all of the games he had to be good. When you're playing with people from different backgrounds (assuming of course they could afford to game) it didn't matter what race you are, how much money is in the bank or whether you're male or female. What mattered was the game and having fun putting your skills to the test.
Did you master all the combos? Have you found the secret areas and items? Is your timing good enough to score that match-winning goal?
I was disheartened to hear about Battlefield players having to buy the latest maps and updates in order to keep playing. I told a friend of mine that there are games, like Counterstrike, where the community made maps for free. He looked at me like I was the crazy one. They were almost forced to keep up with everyone by paying to do so. This is not the equality gaming promised us. We had something beautiful for a while, and now it, too, is succumbing to the temptation of money. It won't be long before the player with the most money wins. Menus filled with options for better guns, more health and even a god mode (if you're willing to pay for it) could eventually be the norm. The same things we were trying to escape from - the daily grind of our jobs, the unequal societies which favour the haves and other forms of discrimination - now seems to be creeping into our games.
I thought the original point of the console was to give the average Joe and Josephine a chance at gaming, especially if they didn't have the technical expertise to handle a PC or the money to buy one. For the longest time, console games sold at the same price as PC games, and there were instances when Playstation titles went "Platinum" meaning the price was cut down, usually by half. When I look at the cost of console titles today, it is insane. I didn't buy Starcraft 2 until the price dropped because I felt $50 for the game was a bit much. There are now console games starting at $60. EA's Titanfall is $59.99 across platforms. Also, why pay full price for something that barely has more than a few hours of content, and why pay full price when it is digitally distributed? I can understand if they delivered a DVD to you, but there is so much digital content for full price when there is actually no real distribution.
I grew up gaming on console and PC. I loved my Playstation 1 and 2. I felt little, if any connection to my PS3. I will not be buying a PS4. Instead, any cash that would have gone into a new console, will be firmly invested in my PC. This is not to say the PC is better. The console could be awesome if the games were better and a little cheaper. The thing that made me want to buy a console was the exclusives, which seem rare these days.
Maybe the game developer companies and publishers have lost sight of the reason they made and distributed games. If the player has no emotional connection or investment in a game, they will find other uses for their money...such as a new PC.
