Well, that just about clears it up. The only way to get a cheat code is through a website that is paid for through advertising- so it’s a better deal for EA to charge you.
That smarmy apologist cocksucker will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Finally, someone that cares about MY concerns.
If you would like to read my reply, please paypal me $1. Then you don’t have to read it on this pro-advertising site.
Competing publishers should advertise free unlocks with their games. Someone needs to hold EA’s feet to the fire over this shit. It really is offensive.
Cheque’s in the mail. Start writing.
I don’t get it. Unless they give every copy a randomized set of cheat codes, it only takes one person to buy them all and post them on the Internet. Never mind that randomized codes (as in, unlocking Joe Street Fighter with three analog stick clicks, plus unlocking Jane Jujitsu with two analog stick clicks on Copy A, then reversing those codes on Copy B) would be silly, because you just post the set on the Internet instead. Then the users will try each code with each thing that needs a code, until it clicks. Never underestimate a person’s willingness to endure tedium to save a few bucks.
Unless you sell the whole list as a package deal (and I’m talking five dollars or less), no one’s going to ante up. You can sell each code cheaply, but then you’ll be literally nickel-and-diming people.
Why shouldn’t game companies be able to charge whatever the fuck they want?
Tom, i think they are downloads, not actual codes. So until someone hacks the 360, you would not be able to “share” them.
Well, I can’t picture the interface that would require. You might not want your cheats on all the time, or you may want some. I think you’d have to go into a menu – stopping play – and select from a list. You couldn’t reserve a button on the controller, because MS wouldn’t allow it, but I guess you could make the menu retain a dynamic short list of popular choices, or a pop-up within the menu that shows the controller, with each button mapped to a cheat. But there wouldn’t always be enough buttons… Okay, I’m thinking about this waaay too much.
Well remember, we’re talking unlocks here, not “God Mode” so much… And if there were a god mode or add money cheat, they’d probably just add it to a menu after you downloaded it.
They’re scum of course, but hopefully the market will kick them in the nuts for this. It reminds me of the Bethesda guy on the nextgen podcast saying that lots of people bought the horse armor and it was a huge success.
They can. And I can tell them to fuck themselves. Everyone wins!
As has been pointed out, they’re just unlocks so far. Like, you could accomplish feat X in the game to unlock level Y, or you could just buy level Y. In the past, it would’ve been accomplish feat X in the game, or enter a code at the level select screen to unlock level Y.
What you’re proposing isn’t unrealistic either though, tons of games already did exactly what you describe: a cheat menu. A popular method was that cheat codes could be discovered as you play, i.e. you find a secret room with a treasure chest, open it, and it says “Sill Hats Mode Unlocked!” Then you’d pull up the cheat menu from the pause menu where you previouslly had:
???
???
???
???
You’d now see
???
???
Silly Hat Mode…On
???
There was often still a way to unlock them by entering a code though instead of finding the cheats in the game as a reward.
That kind of thing is already very common in games, we’ve come a long way from the 16 bit days when you’d pause the game and enter some string of button presses, and then you’d be invincible until you started a new game. Cheats are already very much integrated into the UI/options in a lot of games, so it would be very easy for EA to apply the same setup to actual cheat codes as well as unlockables. It’s really just the terminology that was probably throwing you, you’re not paying money to have them tell you a sequence of characters to enter, a “code”, you’re paying money to have an option available in your menus that was previously disabled.
I don’t believe this is how it works but if they wanted to stick with controller inputs for the cheat codes they could easily do it. If the code is up, down, up then the code could do absolutely nothing unless you pay to download it which just flags your save file as enabling that code so anytime after that you simply input up, down, up and the desired effect is applied.
Ah, now that’s interesting. I hadn’t thought of that. Sounds like the most likely scenario.
Oh my god, this could cost me literally several dollars per year.
Quick, someone help me twist my knickers! It’s only a matter of time before EA sells you nothing but an empty disc, and you have to pay by the minute to play the game!
You troll much better in P&R. I’m just sayin.
Thanks, I take that as a compliment :)
Seriously, though - I’ve continued to be underwhelmed by the thought of EA charging for unlockables, and I’ve said so in every one of the multiple threads covering it so far. I’m the sensible Yin to Flyinj’s fiery Yang.
I mean, the PR guy has a really stupid justification for it. We all know that EA wants to dip its toe in the microtransaction business, so unlockables are the obvious low-hanging fruit here.
But lets be clear - as I understand it, unlockables are still free. You just have to (ahem) unlock them. It’s only if you don’t want to unlock them, you have the option of paying for it rather than getting a cheat code. I fail to see this as the end of the world, or a slippery slope leading to the end of the world, or a tall hill from which you can see the end of the world, or anything else like it.
When EA sells an overpriced game with insufficient content out of the box, then start complaining on <insert your favorite gaming forum here>. But I’m having trouble getting incensed about a theoretical exploitation in some future game that hasn’t been developed yet.
well in EA’s case they do actually remove the button based cheat codes in other versions of the game when they port to 360, specifically so they can sell them. Not unlockable content (though they do that too) but actual regualar cheats.
The problem is that cheat codes have to be purchased. What used to be a small freebie that allowed time-challenged people to get to some fun stuff quickly is now just another upsell at the checkout counter.
I don’t like commoditization of previously free information. These bits and bytes don’t even require additional effort to make or support; they’re generated during the development phase to streamline the testing process and are given away to the gamer, perhaps as a way of saying “thanks for buying our product.” It’s practically a party favor, and now someone wants you to pony up for it. I think that’s cheese.