Pachter says “EA planning to release paid DLC’s”, EA says “not quite, yet”

If you thought paid DLC’s are bad enough, well, how about paying for a game demo? Wedbush Morgan’s resident gaming guru Michael Pachter has revealed EA’s plan to offer extended downloadable demos for a price prior to the games official launch.

If you thought paid DLC’s are bad enough, well, how about paying for a game demo? Wedbush Morgan’s resident gaming guru Michael Pachter has revealed EA’s plan to offer extended downloadable demos for a price prior to the games official launch. According to Pachter:

The “premium downloadable content” would be sold for $10 or $15 through Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, and would essentially be a very long game demo, along the lines of 2009’s Battlefield 1943.

A full-blown packaged game would follow shortly after the release of the PDLC, bearing a full retail price. Mr. Earl (general manager of Visceral Games) believes that the release of the PDLC first limits the risk of completing and marketing the full packaged version, and serves as a low-cost marketing tool.

I think that the plan is to release PDLC at $15 that has 3-4 hours of gameplay, so [it has] a very high perceived value, then [EA will] take the feedback from the community (press and players) to tweak the follow-on full game that will be released at a normal packaged price point.

EA’s view is that the PDLC costs a lot less to develop (essentially, it’s the first few levels of the full-blown game), and they have the opportunity to fix whatever needs to be fixed in the packaged product that is released a few months later, whether that entails doing more of what people like or doing less of what they don’t like. It sounds like a brilliant strategy to me.

But Electronic Arts’ VP of corporate communications Jeff Brown immediately responded to Pachter’s comments and says:

EA is working on a number of projects for delivering premium content to consumers before, during, and after the launch of a packaged-goods version of the game. EA SPORTS, EA Games and EA Play are each experimenting with download strategies that deliver fresh game content in formats players want to experience. To date, there is no set pricing strategy for the entire EA portfolio. And many of the proposals include free-to-play content on models similar to Madden Ultimate Team, Battlefield Heroes and Battlefield 1943. None of the proposals call for charging consumers for traditionally free game demos.

Via [Gamasutra]