Wednesday, September 28th 2011
Electronic Arts' Massive 2012 $1.6m Battlefield 3 Tournament: Consoles Yes, PC No
While PC gamers are getting understandably excited about one of the year's biggest releases, which is guaranteed to have standards-setting graphics at least, there's a kick in the teeth waiting just around the corner. EA and Virgin Gaming have teamed up to launch a massive BF3 contest with $1.6m in cash and prizes - for consoles only. Yes, you read that right. And the reason? Consoles are the "gold standard". That's the aging console platforms reported on TechPowerUp a few days ago. GameStop's president Tony Bartel said in an interview with IndustryGamers:
The competition website excitingly states:
This strategy appears to make no sense. Why spend all that money on developing the game only to alienate a massive market segment, even if it's perceived to not be as big as the console one? It will very likely sell massively well to PC gamers regardless, but wouldn't it have made even more dollars by not artificially restricting the competition like this? This goes to show the arrogance and contempt that some big companies show towards their customers and EA is no stranger to controversy, restrictive DRM issues being a major source.
Source:
Maximum PC
We continue to believe that the console is a strong platform and will continue to be the gold standard.
The biggest, most realistic, room-shaking FPS ever demands a tournament that will always be remembered," the contest's sign-up page brags. "That's why Virgin Gaming, and EA DICE have come together to bring you an online competition you'll be telling your grandkids about. So strap on your boots and check your magazine-when the spoils of war are this rich, you can bet things are gonna get messy.That page then goes on to include links for PS3 & XBOX360 to register, but not the lowly PC. On top of that, it won't even be available on Steam, but gamers will instead have to sign up for the competing EA Origin platform.
129 Comments on Electronic Arts' Massive 2012 $1.6m Battlefield 3 Tournament: Consoles Yes, PC No
from what the Beta shows graphics wise Medium settings in BF3 looks about the same as BC2 does at ultra. still its a slap in the face lol much to my amusement
We all know what is better, we aren't 10yr old MW players. Really don't care what they say as long as they deliver a product that has hardcore mode so I can turn off the MW cheese.
Edit: Click on the round virgin gaming logo in the upper left corner of the contest webpage to bring you to the main site
Ironically EA and Activision are competing in the Douche Bag publisher cup, and EA is slowly winning the battle.
It's not like the PC and Console versions of Battlefield 3 look and feel the same, PC gamers are in for a superior experience. CoD gives you the same DX9+pewpew sound bullcrap you're used to since 2006.
It seems completely retarded for development houses to take so much money from companies like Intel, AMD, and Nvidia as part of their advertising programs if they go around saying the PC is not the gold standard. These companies want us to buy their big expensive high return products, thats the whole reason they give money to dev teams... If they wanna focus on consoles, let microsoft and sony foot the bill. Don't think ATI and Nvidia are getting much return these days given that everyone and their mother has a console by now if they ever had any intention of buying one :p