One of the big problems we have with the way most modern games operate  is that it seems to have become the norm, even somewhat fashionable and acceptable to punish players rather than fixing problems. This extends to everything from design flaws to business model flaws.

Indie’s hold an advantage in this regard. Being smaller and without the burden of idiotic policies, they can flex and react to issues much faster than a major corporation. An indie game developer who has developed not only their game, but a vibrant community…has a type of pseudo partnership with the people who play their games. Players in turn, almost always understand that what happens to the company can affect them as well. This can lead to pure magic.

Let’s take a case in point. We found this on Slashdot. It breaks our heart, despite never having played BH. A few days ago, I specifically addressed this very issue when I said: “We want people to pay to enhance their gaming experience, as opposed to wanting people to pay to enable their gaming experience.”. And the issue with EA hits this nail on the head. What’s more telling is that many of the comments from the players to the effect of: if you needed money, we as a group would have stepped up to the plate.

The fact of the matter is, the developer does not “get it”. You can see this from their response:

“We don’t really need money as much as a sustainable business model for the game.”

If you did not do your homework in regard to your business model, your first step is to figure out where you went wrong, without alienating your player base. It might well involve putting more of a financial burden on the players, but a player who loves a game will work with you to make it better. Punishing the player for your mistake is never ever the answer.

At the core of this though, is a much deeper concern. Big dev houses are seeing micro transactional business models as the “new thing”, but they have very little understanding of it. Calling Battlefield: Heroes a MT based game is a bit disingenuous now. Why? Because as we stated earlier: payment should enhance the game play, not enable it. If you want to enable game play via payment, then micro transactional is not for you. In that case, a monthly or other subscription option is the business model you should be using.  B:H has basically lost a lot of value to it’s player base. This is unfortunate. As I said, it breaks our heart to see satisfied players thrown under the bus because someone did not do their homework. But it’s situations like this that have the potential to jade players away from the micro transaction model of payment.