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
I say only RETARDS play on CONSOLES..........................
Moving the guns like bunch of assholes and firing indefinitely.....shit they are retard to buy the console at the first place..................
Why 1.6? Why not 1.7, 1.8?
i highly, highly doubt that dice/ea will drop the ball on this one.
There has already been a tournament for best BF3 platform and PC won it by a mile.
people who have a console in the eyes of EA are money because the majority is synonymous with high earnings, the PC community is a minority this does not carry money ...
I do not agree with the special or limited editions are useless, and that ugly big metal box in my shelf ruins everything.
they gave me battlefield 3, built for pcs - i'll let em have a tournament i never would've participated in anyway.
Dice are making a great game, it would've been better if it had been through a publisher that wasn't EA, but at the end of the day you get what your given, and i for one will be buying BF3 anyway because i don't care about a tournament, i play my games for Fun.
Has it occurred to anyone here consoles are the best platform for tournaments, because unlike PC's they are al the same, an no one's getting an advantage just because they can afford to spend 100's of £'s on mouse mats and gaming keyboards.
and now a large number of post's have appeared on this thread which, to be fair, seem to of been posting by people of limited intelligence, who can't spell and only want to insult console players (Example www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2410338&postcount=77). not realising a large amount of the people on these forums also play on consoles.
to the point, BF3 is a great game, and unlike COD, if they do want to make a little bit more money out of it, they have more then earned the right to do that
Regarding a tournament for consoles, I really don't think about them or use them or know about them.
As for the contest it's probably like that to limit cheating as you know cheating is less rampant on consoles.
In the end no harm done here to me as it wont be as realistic as i require.
Kind of a lowest-common-denominator hardware baseline, but definitely not a "gold standard" lol.
A ton of sensationalism and overreaction on this thread. Qubit likes to post stories like he's part of the Penny Press of the late 1800s/early 1900s (not hating on you, Qubit ;)).
I don't think this one was over sensationalized though. I certainly think it's a bad, arrogant move to alienate PC gamers, treating them like they're second class citizens. :shadedshu My headline and reporting style reflect this sentiment.
I also did notice that the whole gold standard comment from the Gamestop dude and the and whole contest in general are two entirely unrealted stories and that most seem to be mixing them up as the same story.
No hate at all here toward anyone, I'm just seeing 5 pages of the same hating EA for the wrong reasons. There are obviously plenty of other things to hate EA about:toast: