EA is obviously the focal point here, especially given some other pay content they've released as of late. Their "strategy guide" for NCAA Football 07 on passing boils down to this one piece of closely guarded secrecy: pass to the open man. The price for this all-powerful information? A whopping 160 MS Points.
There's another side to all of this, and that's not to buy it. To that, all that can be said is:
Duh.
All the posts on message boards about protesting and not buying it mean precisely nothing. People will buy whether or not member EAhaterzrool over on the EA Sports forums posts 2,000 messages ordering others to obey his wishes.
Normally, not buying this content is a choice. Stupidity, like the infamous horse armor from Oblivion, or gamer pictures from Cabela's Alaskan Adventure, are one thing. Selling cheats, especially those freely available on other versions, affects a lot of people.
So, who's to blame? It's not Microsoft. Yes, they could control what's posted on their service. However, someone out there really did buy that horse armor at some point. If 99% of the users don't want a piece of content, that means there's still 1% of users that do. Who is Microsoft to say what's appropriate for a third party game? This content was purely dreamed up by EA, and as such, they're the ones that should have the fingers (likely the middle ones) pointed in their direction.
There's plenty of debate out there about the slippery slope of digital content. Xbox Live's precedent has set the motion, and it's headed in the direction that no one wants to watch. This latest piece is an example of the Marketplace concept at its lowest possible point, and it's hard to imagine a company sinking even lower than EA has here.
Article comments
1 - Rich Frankel
Nice article, I'll be really upset when you can buy achievements, or worst yet, the inevitable day when we get:
"Cash Cow 100 pts: Awarded for purchasing 3 pieces of downloadable content from Marketplace"
btw, the slug for this story reads as: "Matt Paprocki Says Xbox 360 Live Marketplace Is Paying Cheaters" - slightly different meaning.
2 - oggt
Blame the companies it's all this guy do.
You don't want it, don't buy it. Stop blame the companies for trying different business aproaches.
This is the online gaming era, they are trying new things to make money. I won't buy it...
3 - tolkien kitty
everyone should be maxed out in online games already, to create the level playing field. EA is setting up a divide between the haves, i.e. those that have ms points, and the have nots. shame on you EA for making us poor folks work for our golfers.
4 - Briffic
I must agree that this is in fact the gaming era. But then explain to me when the era became an error? Remember when you had to master a jump to beat a level? Now you dont even have to master a shot in a golf game. Just pay and you are better than n e one who pours the time into it. I believe that EA has become so money hungry, they no longer have any actual gamers working for them. Just a bunch of business man cheaters.