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A little background before my rant.....
I suck at FPS and make no excuses about it. But for whatever reason, I decided to try out MAG and found that not only did I really enjoy the game but that I could also be an asset to my team. I became a Medic/Repair class character and while my K/D ration was low, I was able to help my team by healing, res'ing, making repairs to equipment, and more. While I died frequently and didn't get a whole ton of kills, I learned HOW to play the role of Medic/Repair and became a good team player with plenty of invites into "clans".
One thing that I and a lot of other MAG players wanted to see added to the game was the ability to have more than one character. As it stood, when you started out in MAG, you picked a faction, character, and class and then played. If you decided to change your faction, for whatever reason, you had to delete your current character and start a new one over from Lvl 1. Or you had to go thru the hassle of creating new user accounts for the characters you wanted.
Now my rant.....
When I logged onto PSN to look at this weeks update of offerings, I was surprised to see that Zipper (and/or Sony) had listened to the players and decided to add additional character slots to the game. I thought it strange that this feature hadn't been done within a patch to the game rather than a download, but what the heck. Then before clicking on download, I read the fine print: each additional character slot would cost the player $0.99 PER MONTH!! A MONTHLY FEE???? FOR MAG???? WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!
I might be able to accept a one time 99cent cost for additional characters to my MAG game, but a monthly fee is a cost that I refuse to accept. And I don't believe for a second that it will stop with MAG..... the day that gamers pay a fee to play Call of Duty or Gran Turismo or Resident Evil or Killzone or whatever game you care to name, is not that far away.
I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of my PS3. Uncharted 1 & 2, Valkyria Chronicles, PixelJunk Shooter, PixelJunk Monsters, Demon's Souls, White Knight Chronicles, Resistance I & II, Little Big Planet, God of War III, and MAG are some of the BEST games I've ever played. I've enjoyed built-in WiFi and Blu-ray movies. I've been happy with my PS3.
But these same game companies seem to also be doing their utmost to ruin any good feelings I have with their attempts to grab more and more money. Every time I turn around I'm faced with a fee of some kind or a way to cripple a used game or a firmware bug that renders my console inoperable on a particular date or a patch for one game that renders another game glitched or an incomplete game description of a downloadable game (i.e. Final Fight).
Look at what Sony did with Playstation Plus: they promised WEEKLY specials to Playstation Plus members for the price of $50 per year. And people signed right up. But then, just 5 weeks later, Sony announced that they would update Playstation Plus every other week rather than the every week promised. Those that signed up with the promise of new offerings every week suddenly found themselves now only getting 50% of what they were promised. Not a very good incentive to get me to sign up for PS+ as who knows how many weeks will go by before Sony changes the membership rules again..... once a month updates, anybody???
I really don't like the direction that gaming is taking. And I'm sure there are a lot more changes to come that I haven't even thought about.... maybe good, maybe bad.
My spending on gaming for my PS3, Xbox360, and Wii is changing dramatically and I'm buying less and less and less. And its not because I don't have the fund to continue to make purchases... it because the gaming companies are changing the rules of gaming in a way I don't care to be a part of.
Mendon
Edited by Mendon, Wed Sep 1, 2010 8:38 AM.
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