Luke Plunkett, associate editor of Kotaku isn’t a big fan of our boycott effort, or our HUGE win. In response, he posted a rebuttal to our brilliant win over EA today. (Link) In his “rant” he argues that we achieved a hollow victory because, as a puts it, our efforts to stop EA from charging for guns, has done nothing because they’ll just ramp up their marketing campaign to make up for these lost profits, or simply attempt to sell the DLC again down the line.
Is this a news flash? EA will try to sell DLC again? Oh noes!
Read on for why I think Luke’s rant is a non-starter, after the jump!
Through the efforts of the gaming community, we were able to convince EA to stop charging for the five guns. We. Stopped. Them. April 9, 2008. Mark it.
Just think about that for a second… We stopped a multi-billion dollar company from attempting to exploit us.
Unfortunately, Luke simply ignores that fact, and without any evidence, blindly asserts that EA will simply try it again down the line and that our victory was just a hollow victory.
Specifically, He wrote, ”
“No, they’ll replace that “lost” money with the advertising dollars they rake in via the “marketing programs” anyone wanting the game’s better guns will need to sit through. Or with other DLC offered later down the line (premium grenades, perhaps?), when this has all died down. They’re not giving the money away, then, just shuffling it around a bit so you won’t notice it so much. This isn’t the end of stuff like this. The next EA game will have silly DLC, and the next one, and the next one.
Which means the boycotts (for a game you weren’t going to buy anyways), the anger, the petitions, they’re all pointless. This is a hollow victory. Why am I bringing this up, even though it will rain on more than a few people’s parades?”
Basically, he sees no merit in what we’ve accomplished. Why? Because he “thinks” that EA will just try to do it again. Too bad he doesn’t cite any evidence for his assertions.
Even if what he says is true, what he doesn’t realize is that we KNOW THIS MAN! We are well aware of EA’s intentions. This crap is the reason that we stood up and took notice in the first place. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t see any of the “big” web blogs leading a charge to keep this kind of stuff in line, so we, at Sarcastic Gamer were forced to.
We know that EA will keep trying to sell bogus DLC. This is the VERY REASON we stood up and did what we did, in the first place. His argument is a non_starter. He argues that what we did was meaningless because EA will just try, try again and apparently believes that we won’t try, try again either.
He believes that we should educate the people that buy the crap DLC. Aren’t our boycott efforts, that are plastered all over the web, educating those very same people? Please don’t tell me that those people never read Gamespot, or IGN, that’s just silly. We are educating those people, or at least trying to educate those people. We are making a difference. Sorry Luke, you can’t take today away from us.
How bout this Mr. Plunkett: How bout standing with us the next time this happens? Because I can guaran-damn-tee that if it happens again, we’ll organize another boycott, and we’ll get the job done.
That’s what we do. We did it once, we’ll do it again. Who knew Kotaku would be such party poopers?
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Really? If anything, EA just totally stole free marketing from the internet. This “controversy” spread about the internet. Thanks to this whole hoolabaloo, they probably saved money.
“Which means the boycotts (for a game you weren’t going to buy anyways)[...]” That line perfectly describes the situation. Now the positive publicity of EA “giving away” weapons will bring more people to the game.
GG, Sarcastic Gamer.
While some of Luke’s points are not exactly valid, I agree with his main ideas. He just stood back and said, “OK, what’s gonna come out of this?”
Meanwhile, the guys here are still in a drunken haze over the “victory”, screaming “WOOO, %#$K YEAH WE DID IT!!!11!!”, almost as if they’re surprised that the petitions/boycotts worked.
Well… let me start by saying I am not a sarcastic gamer reader. I’d heard of the site a few times when people would link stories, etc. But it was people from this community or others like it whose comments proliferated throughout the web and made me understand the abuses of EA’s DLC scheme. So this effort did, in fact, educate the dullards like me who might have been willing to pay for EA’s extra guns like it was any other DLC. Thanks guys! FIGHT ON!
I am befuddled at Mr Plunkett’s comment regarding the recouping money lost will be by later sales of DLC. It’s as if he thinks people will be unable to recall this whole fiasco. If anything, people will be more cognizant of this problem. I have no problem with DLC that adds to, or enhances the game play. New maps or expansion packs are great. I do have a problem with DLC that alters the gameplay for those who purchase the content. I have, and will continue, to buy map packs and expansions packs for my games. I will never buy any DLC that alters the basic mechanics of the game for those who choose to buy. IMHO anything that changes the game play so much, like additional weapons, should be earned, not sold.
How could EA not see this coming? Maybe they just wanted to see how far they could go. It’s awful close to a slippery slope argument, but I think this could have been a very small step down a very ugly and expensive path. Companies are well within there rights to get what the market will allow. In this case, the market won’t allow. I am satisfied the good guys won. Hollow? I think not. For shame Mr. Plunkett. For shame.
@endjas: At the time we decided to boycott, I know that I was really stoked for the game and would have purchased it on day one. I know that a lot of people on this site felt the same way.
The only kind of publicity we brought to EA was bad pub, which is why they changed course. If you can’t recognize that now, there’s nothing more I can say. Other than:
You’re argument makes no sense.
I think it’s funny how these corporate gamer blogs act like they are aristocrasy. Maybe they will realize that we are all in the same boat here, becuase we are all gamers. It’s great that someone stood up to EA. I don’t hate EA, and I’m sure that you guys don’t either. I play many of their games, but gamers aren’t idiots either. that $59 dollar game becomes a $69 dollar game automatically. It’s basically a bait and switch. You pay $59 dollars in the store, and have to pay another $10 when you get home just to compete. Some of these paid writers need to take a step back and realize why they got into the games industry anyways, because I’m sure it wasn’t because of the pay!