Shame On EA for "pay to play"

[mdiggitydawg]

DId I just read IGN's review correctly? There is only temporary access to downloadable content unless you "master" them?

Paying for courses EVERY year that should transfer from one year to the next, is bad enough. Now paying to play a round...hell, why stay home, I'll get back on a real course.

Am I wrong?

[stormjr]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

The review is 100% wrong.

You can earn in game coins to use towards renting a round at a DLC course. If you gold master the DLC course, then it's yours to keep.

OR

You can purchase the course with real money and play it as much as you want.

[mcmax3000]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

Yeah, IGN got it horribly wrong. Hopefully they change that section of the review because there are a lot of people reading that and being mislead today.

I can see how the reviewer may have thought that what he wrote was correct as the DLC courses just got put on Marketplace today so pre-release, that's probably how it looked.

[DivotMaker]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

Paying for courses EVERY year that should transfer from one year to the next, is bad enough. Now paying to play a round...hell, why stay home, I'll get back on a real course.

Am I wrong?

Wrong? Not sure. Misinformed, yes. Each course usually requires an update to reflect the rendering engine improvements from year to year and this years is the most comprehensive graphics overhaul in some time. Plus, each course has a licensing fee associated with it (other than fantasy courses) and there is a cost each year to put those course in the game. These are just some of the reasons you can't transfer courses from year to year.....

And the IGN review is chock full of misinformation and IMO, a very half-assed effort by an incompetent video Golf reviewer.

[Richzilla]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

Wrong? Not sure. Misinformed, yes. Each course usually requires an update to reflect the rendering engine improvements from year to year and this years is the most comprehensive graphics overhaul in some time. Plus, each course has a licensing fee associated with it (other than fantasy courses) and there is a cost each year to put those course in the game. These are just some of the reasons you can't transfer courses from year to year.....

And the IGN review is chock full of misinformation and IMO, a very half-assed effort by an incompetent video Golf reviewer.

Well with links golf we were able to do that...import and convert courses from previous versions. That was 10 years ago...I'm sure there were no licensing fee's back then to worry about. You will never convince me that's its not a huge cash grab by EA. They even made the dlc cost more this year.

Before DLC all the courses used to be on the disk. They would add as much content as possible to the disk each year in order to get us to buy it....wow what progress we have made in the last several years....the video game industry has crashed before....if they kill the golden goose it can happen again...I'm going to only buy this game now on a semi annual basis due to the ridiculous cost model we currently have.

[DivotMaker]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

Well with links golf we were able to do that...import and convert courses from previous versions. That was 10 years ago...I'm sure there were no licensing fee's back then to worry about. You will never convince me that's its not a huge cash grab by EA. They even made the dlc cost more this year.

Before DLC all the courses used to be on the disk. They would add as much content as possible to the disk each year in order to get us to buy it....wow what progress we have made in the last several years....the video game industry has crashed before....if they kill the golden goose it can happen again...I'm going to only buy this game now on a semi annual basis due to the ridiculous cost model we currently have.

There WERE licensing fees even back in the Links days. Don't kid yourself. And Links for PC (key fact) had a course converter for courses that had licensing fees. Links also did not come with 30+ stock courses, but they had a course creator feature, something that has never worked well with console golf games. The course converter also had to convert 2D courses, not 3D courses as the TW 360/PS3 courses are today, so you are comparing apples to oranges.

The reason all the courses came on the disk was because they offered 10-12 courses ONLY and those courses were about 1/4 the size of the average TW 360/PS3 courses which average 200+ MB. You also forget that Links and EA also used to offer course packs. Those course packs were $20+ and up for 3 courses and had nowhere near the amount of artwork and content that the TW 360/PS3 courses have today. I purchased the 11 course pack for $27 (EA Season Pass discount) as well as 2 other courses for a total of $35 for THIRTEEN top notch licensed courses. To get that many quality courses from Links PC, you would have had to pay almost $100 extra to do so. You can criticize EA for their model all day long, but present relevant facts next time. Your comparisons are flawed IMO.

[mcmax3000]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

I understand some of the reasons why allowing DLC to transfer between games would be difficult (and I also understand that EA likes money so I'm sure they're not exactly losing sleep over the idea of selling us the same courses year after year) but solely as a consumer, I can't help but look at the fact that I spent $4 to buy Banff Springs for Tiger Woods 12 and now EA wants me to spend $5 for the same course for this year's game.

Allowing us to earn courses in game is definitely a step in the right direction but they still need to look for better solutions.

I guess part of that is just me being spoiled as a huge Harmonix fan in that with only one or two exceptions, every song I purchased from day one of playing the original Rock Band in 2007 still works to this day, five years and multiple sequels later.

There are ways to handle cross compatibility between games. There are ways to handle licensing fees.

Hell, if they actually put the work in to figure out these things, I bet they'd sell quite a bit more DLC, not only because of the knowledge that buying a course one year would allow you to continue using it in future games but also because instead of working on updating the same courses every year for DLC, they could work on more new courses that people would probably be more likely to buy since they haven't been playing them year after year.

(Also, while I don't think that the 11 courses for $40 pack is that terribly priced, your 13 courses for $35 comment is pretty skewed as a Season Ticket member... For the majority of players to buy 13 courses, it would be $50 or more [one of the single courses is priced at $7], which is getting close to the cost of the disc, just for add-on content)

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

Can someone please tell me of I can buy courses like a normal human being. ie: go to the PSN store, get what I want and pay for it with my PSN account. I never seen so much vagueness and unanswered questions on the EA site with people asking if this is even possible.

It sounds like you have to buy coins and then buy the courses and the coin package costs you $50 for a $40 DLC package. There's no in between. I'm not going to use the coins for anything else so I'm getting charged an extra $10 for nothing. The course bundles aren't listed on the PSN store. Is it because it's late being listed or EA is trying to scam extra money by forcing you to buy coins to purchase DLC that costs you more. If that's the case then that's pretty sad.

I don't want to rent them or earn mastery on them so I don't need an explanation on any of that stuff. I wanna go home tonite, sign in to PSN store and purchase a few courses for the price they are listed at. Is that even possible?

[BIG CAROLINA]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

Can someone please tell me of I can buy courses like a normal human being. ie: go to the PSN store, get what I want and pay for it with my PSN account. I never seen so much vagueness and unanswered questions on the EA site with people asking if this is even possible.

It sounds like you have to buy coins and then buy the courses and the coin package costs you $50 for a $40 DLC package. There's no in between. I'm not going to use the coins for anything else so I'm getting charged an extra $10 for nothing. The course bundles aren't listed on the PSN store. Is it because it's late being listed or EA is trying to scam extra money by forcing you to buy coins to purchase DLC that costs you more. If that's the case then that's pretty sad.

I don't want to rent them or earn mastery on them so I don't need an explanation on any of that stuff. I wanna go home tonite, sign in to PSN store and purchase a few courses for the price they are listed at. Is that even possible?

Lol I hear you man. Do what I did, when I bought the game from GameStop, I bought the 11 course pack from them. They gave me a code, I went home punched it in and waited for 1.2 GB file to d/l.

[kickingguru]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

You can just buy the dlc on xbox so i assume it should be the same on PS3... PSN has in the past been 2 to 3 days behind xbox live for DLC releases so that could be the issue... PS3 guys... have at that one...

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

Lol I hear you man. Do what I did, when I bought the game from GameStop, I bought the 11 course pack from them. They gave me a code, I went home punched it in and waited for 1.2 GB file to d/l.

I didn't even know you could do that at Gamestop. The only problem is I got $45 dollars sitting in my PSN account that won't be spent on anything else so I don;t want to fork over money to gamestop or buy another $20 PSN money card where I won;t use the the excess.

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

You can just buy the dlc on xbox so i assume it should be the same on PS3... PSN has in the past been 2 to 3 days behind xbox live for DLC releases so that could be the issue... PS3 guys... have at that one...

I hope you're right because if this is just a PS3 thing where you can;t buy the courses normally then I'll be pissed.

[Seymour Scagnetti]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

I just found out from a EA dev that the only way to buy DLC for the PS3 is thru the coins where you get ripped off $10 for the bundle package of 11 courses. Xbox users can buy it the regular way. What a joke. I wish we were informed of this before I threw $40 into my PSN account just for these courses. Now I get charged a premium for these stupid coins that Xbox guys don't. This is just wrong.

[Flightwhite24]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

I just found out from a EA dev that the only way to buy DLC for the PS3 is thru the coins where you get ripped off $10 for the bundle package of 11 courses. Xbox users can buy it the regular way. What a joke. I wish we were informed of this before I threw $40 into my PSN account just for these courses. Now I get charged a premium for these stupid coins that Xbox guys don't. This is just wrong.

I figured this out yesterday what EA had done regarding this. For being a Season Ticket holder I wasn't able to get the 20% off like it was promised because of the way its done. I'm sitting with an extra 25,000 coins that I will never use. Would love for someone from EA to chime in on the PS3 user not being able to save the 20% off DLC Courses???

[gsize19]

Re: Shame On EA for "pay to play"

use the extra coins on pin packs... If you get a few XP boosts it pays off and would never have to use the other crap, extra pct. for driver, etc... I know like the sim style, but to get the XP boosts, golden, just helps you improve your player quicker... I never use any of the others, etc. maybe the extra putt preview when the time comes when the daily tourney players get up to the -22 to -25 which I am sure is soon to come, and I have to work to be better than a shot per hole, rather than just enjoy the game and play it where it lies...