Sarcastic Gamer Community,

Take a deep breath. You did something amazing. With the support of more than a hundred independent blogs and podcasts, you brought awareness to the effort to convince EA to alter its course with the DLC for Bad Company. More than that, you proved that when properly motivated, even the smallest of communities can accomplish huge feats. No we didn’t change the world, or end hunger. But we did make enough noise to elicit a positive response from an enormous company.

This boycott was founded for two reasons.

First, to directly disrupt the plan to distribute what we felt was abusive DLC at the expense of loyal fans of the Battlefield franchise.

Secondly, but perhaps most importantly, we wanted to send a clear message to EA and other publishers, that there is a very clear limit to how far they can take downloadable content, and that there can be awful repercussions if the line is crossed.

After reading the interviews that were granted to the larger outlets this evening, I am confident that we accomplished both of those objectives decisively, and with our own brand of class.

At no point in this fracas did you hear any single individual with Sarcastic Gamer say anything derogatory regarding the quality of BF:BC. Our intention was not to hurt DICE, a respected developer. Our intention was not to hurt EA either. I do not believe we did either of those things. We just wanted, as a community, to be heard.

The reason that this effort was successful is that we made reasonable, clear demands of those with the power to change things, and your community, on the whole, ran with that clear message. You told anyone who would listen, and many who wouldn’t. You stared down several respected bloggers who basically laughed at the effort, or ignored it.

While we might have employed a touch of sensationalism, I have no regrets on how things were handled on this end. Small sites like ours must sometimes play by a different set of rules to be heard on a scale large enough to make an impact. Our boycott video might have been an extreme exaggeration, but it did it’s job. It spread the word.

While the result might not be ideal, this boycott cannot continue with any degree of integrity. While the hoops to jump through might be a little on the silly side, the content in question is now fully available to anyone that purchases BF:BC without additional financial commitment. I believe it would be petty of all of us to continue with this. DICE and EA have done basically what we have asked.

There have been new calls within the community for another boycott over the pricing of Rock Band for our friends in Europe. I own Rock Band. I do not see how, in good conscience, I could participate in a boycott for a game I already own. We have a saying here in the US. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” Quite simply this means we’re already working on a far more creative way of trying to help our substantial membership from overseas. Please be patient.

As I mentioned before, you as a community, will likely never receive the recognition you deserve for what YOU accomplished. Already, the news of this victory has hit most major gaming sites, many of which said nothing when we were trying to get their assistance. Whatever. That doesn’t matter.

Sarcastic Gamer took a lot of direct hits from all directions. Thanks for defending us.

The podcast team has received a lot of back patting for this, but as much as we appreciate the sentiments, you should really be patting your own shoulders. Sarcastic Gamer was the aircraft carrier, and you crazy bastards did the bombing runs. You got Destructoid to listen. You got IGN to listen. You pissed Joystiq’s Justin McElroy off enough to write about it, just to shut us all up. You made the noise. This is YOUR victory and not ours.

Before I close I want to make an apology to my friend, Lono. When he brought this to Dave and I, I was dismissive. I was scared we’d look stupid (which is itself stupid considering half of the other stuff we do around here). I didn’t believe it could work. After a lot of yelling and some compromises, he convinced Dave and I that it could work, and that our community was more than capable of making this happen. I won’t doubt you (as much) in the future, Lono.

As I promised to do when this all began, if our demands were met, I now plan to buy BF:BC based on the merits of the game, and in appreciation for a very big company doing something as fundamental as it was unexpected.

They listened to their fans.

That’s it.

Boycott complete.

Good job Sarcastic Gamer community, and thanks to the countless bloggers and sites that jumped in to help.

Doc

P.S. Just as we all went forth to spread the bad news, it might be a good idea and get out there and let the troops know that the war’s been called off due to lack of quarrel. At least this one, anyway.