@Buzzfunk Dont be offended, that nickname was the reaction to your aplomb.
So, you are a composer - and... is that supposed to make you some kind of specialist in MTX practices in gaming industry or what? My words were about ur topic - it actually doesnt matter whether you really work in industry or not if you cant see obvious things. And the way how you easily shifted from your initial point 'they have a right to earn money on their own product' to 'it's not F2P to protect you from cheaters' just highlights the weakness of your argument. Look at the market again. Apex, WZ and Fortnite are the most successful BRs (and games at a whole) with high population and high dividents for publishers. More ppl=>more money=>more chances the game wouldnt be abandoned by devs like they did with bfV and Firestorm, that's also obvious. I can't believe it but players in 2k21 do really care about how well their favorite games perform in finance sense, bc understand that nobody wants to play the dead game. Firestorm was made for only 64 players - not much for BR nowadays (and quiet common for default bf server), but it's still unable to find even such a small number.
EA is infamous for burying cordial franchises and for its agressive lootbox obtrusion. Without any backlash and criticism bf will turn into fifa series, just like it was about to happen with battlefront. Just read a recent interview with Chris Bruzzo on Eurogamer and his attitudes. He's really pathetic. But fifa is still alive only because of the absence of competition. In opposite BF has a lot of competitors, it may easily not live through another bfV-Firestorm-like controversy. EA should conquer players favor first. Instead we get 'It's free to play with the purchase of BF2042 for 60$'-tautology. I cant even imagine the situation in which this absolutely meaningless sentence might be said. I mean, I can, but it turns around the sense. The game has already a season pass, which quality is unknown (reference to 100s hrs of entertainment), but they haven't posted a roadmap yet. Knowing EA and bfV live-service that's really interesting to see. By now, after delay, weak beta, questionable gameplay of BR-like mode, 2042 is already much lower in top sellers Steam list, how many preorders were cancelled? The number of potential players diminishes, and our topic is the result of that as well. If portal is for veterans and 128-conquest and specialists are for zoomer-battlefielders, then, hardzone is for whom? And if it's for new players wouldn't it be logical to make it free, bc there are a lot of ppl that are not interested in bf core game at all? I would say a seditious thing but bf is quite unpopular. Nobody asks to make the whole game free, just 1 mode, and EA is still able to gain income throghout mtx. That's an industry standard.
Cheaters is their problem which decreases quality of their product, which means they earn less money. To make the product more attractive they should fight it on their own - not by rising a price border for players, otherwise in a couple of years you may find urself in situation when the game price is 600$ and Chris Bruzzo is explaining that it was made 'to fight hackers'
