Here are some folks who aren’t happy:
Slashdot: Battlefield 2142 to Bundle Spyware?
And a more detailed and empassioned call to arms here:
Heartless Gamer: Voting With Your Wallet
Now technically, all this kerfuffle is somewhat outside my jurisdiction. The upcoming Battlefield: 2142 isn’t really an MMO as such – more a LAN-Game, but this current drive by EA to cram the thing with so many adverts that it’s very flesh starts to warp and twist, and then still have the guts to charge the punters full retail box-price for it, does seem very familiar somehow.
I’ve been here before:
Van Hemlock: The Day of Reckoning
Van Hemlock: The Strength of Will
Yes, in a situation almost identical to the proposed BF2142 in all but scale, Planetside a game in which squad-based combined-arms futuristic combat is also ruined by Giant Easy-Mode Mechas, went through almost exactly the same thing.
Indignation is running high over the adverts, and the newly announced spyware for a ‘better targeted advertainment experience’ or somesuch, and rightly so, but grizzled old Uncle Van Hemlock is here to cheer you all up a bit! Cue wavy-screen flashback effect!
The one major test-run of the in-game advert billboards in Planetside was for the film ‘Deuce Biggalo 2: European Gigallo’ Aside form it being something of an in-game laughing stock of course, the film bombed most satisfyingly at the box-office. In the year since, I’ve been playing PS on and off with fair regularity, and have NEVER seen adverts in Auraxis since, even as a Reservist (The freebie trial account thing)…meaning, we won that skirmish!
Perhaps then, we are strong enough to just point at the adverts, laugh, ignore them and just play? As a marketing demographic, we do rather suck, rarely leaving the house, and preferring imaginary worlds to the real deal, so in a sense, our Apathy is our greatest weapon! EA can stream as much crap at us as they like, but remember, if the people paying them the silly-money for the advertising space don’t see a quick return on investment, they won’t bother in future, and like in Planetside, and Anarchy Online, they’ll dry up and wither – leaving just the game we actually wanted to play in the first place…
Personally, I will be boycotting BF: 2142, not through any particular moral stance mind you, but simply because I haven’t bought a Single-Player Offline PC game since Oblivion, and see no upcoming offline games I want. I’m already lost to EA, and the rest… MMOs are all I need now. I my case certainly, MMOs are killing the offline PC Gaming market...
But Heartless is quite right. At the end of the day, there is only one form of feedback they really understand, and only one way to complain...
(Note: I’d just like to clarify that I’ve not seen ANY talk, rumours, mention or suspicion that Planetside contains malware or spyware, beyond the basic launcher ‘system spec survey’ that they were very up front about some weeks back. The comparison ends there - that’s just EA. I’d recommend a look at Planetside to anyone out there who wants Sci-Fi Squad FPS, and but can’t stomach EA.)
EDIT: This thing runs and runs - EA are now advising that players uninstall Mircosoft Windows Critical Security Updates, presumably to allow their Evil Sinister Malware to function properly. Oh, the audacity! They'll get away with it too, I bet!
Another Reason to say NO to Battlefield 2142!