I'm on.. woot!

There actually is a lot to gain from giving away free content -- and it doesn't take a masters degree to grasp that concept. You guys really aren't giving Epic enough credit. When Mark Rein says that they believe free content is the best way to max. profits for Gears he's not just speaking nonsense.. he has a legit point.

It's a simple concept really -- you reward your customers and you are rewarded with higher sales and customer loyalty. Nickle and diming your key users is actually a pretty short sighted way to go about things.

I mean -- it's also perfectly reasonable to think you can charge for avatars, themes and simple addons like skins/models but that doesn't actually make it perfectly wise. It harms the perception of MS as a company that wants to give back to their users and it makes them look.. well.. greedy.

And yes I do understand their investments (losses) in this industry and I understand that they need to recoup those losses -- but they're already getting there by selling software -- they really don't need to charge 2.50 for every map thats worth your time.

If they were thinking more about the long term they'd be thinking more about their image as well and what that can do to make or break their position as a market leader. It really is not as simple as saying, "We can charge for this -- so we should."

Perhaps thats true in some cases (GeoWars even) but when you have a game thats already moved more than 4 million copies.. there's not much harm in maxing out your userbase by giving a little back to your users.

The console market is different -- but not so much so that you can't give a little back for such success.. and the sad fact is that this microtransaction model is already poluting the PC space and damaging long running industry trends (like expansion packs). Gamers need to consider the long standing impact that MS will have in this space and MS needs to consider the fact that there are actually gamers out there with the ability to look past the right now.. and they need think about how that can ultimately impact their business. A little good will can go a long way.

But anyway -- annex is fun.. gg Phaethon.

SPARTAANNS, prepare to order take out from HELL!

Whatever happened to the mods vs the users? Wasn't that supposed to go down the week after the superbowl?

Yeah.. and maybe we should see if Roxy still wants to organize such a thing.. I think he gave up. But you're welcome to join up with my crew when we play, I'm sure we'll be on a lot more now.

I actually think Warzone/Execution is better for pure team play (so far at least) but Annex should breath some new life into the game and it's good for the constant action.

They have not given away free content -- they gave away sponsored content and there is actually a pretty significant difference. Epic is right.

It's actually pretty straight forward. The only thing they have to lose here is what is wrong with the platform in the first place. They should not assume that their position is here to stay -- it is damn short sighted.

But keep assuming that I'm missing part of the picture here.. or that MS is being "very generous" by giving away this content long after it has sold the optimal amount anyway. That is not generous -- but that is exactly what MS wants you to think. This does not effect me as much as it will MS in the future. Good will can actually be good for business.. and greed, despite the immediate returns can have a negative impact on your image and thus your sales. It is short sighted.

Why should we care how this effects the perception of value anyway? How about actual value? Add-on maps are nothing new -- nickle and diming your core userbase is.

Regardless.. it's a compromise and I do appreciate that much. It could be worse.. not much granted.. but at least the mp game won't be perminantly torn in two, which is more than can be said for a lot of other games.

The thing with this is the knowledge that Epic wanted to give these away for free. If we didn't know that, the compromise reached (kudos to Epic for getting there) would seem entirely reasonable. I certainly don't have a problem with paying a couple of quid for a few maps.

MS preventing Epic giving them away is a little disturbing though. I'd have been happier if they were sponsored again.

On the flip side, there's a bigger picture here which we can't always see. Whilst on the face of it, it looks to be a nickel and dime the consumer at every oppourtunity (and of course there is an element of that) MS isn't going to make a ton of money on this. The revenue sharing agreement with Epic will be generous in the latter's favour. Out of 4m copies sold, only 60% of those are on live and 70% of them use Marketplace. Only a certain % of those will be Gold and still play Gears online and not moved on to other games. A large portion of that userbase is going to wait till they're free.

That is still a ton of people, yes, but when you take out Epic's cut it's a complete blip on Microsoft's P&L for this game. And whilst Gears only cost $10m to make, that doesn't factor in Epic's investment in building the engine, UE3. MS investment in securing it as an exclusive (Epic were surely moneyhatted for this) or the marketing spend (huge!).

What I'm saying here is that this is only partially financially motivated. It doesn't make sense for it to be completely financially motivated and Mark Rein will gladly tell you why.

What developers in this industry need is alternate business models. Marketplace is one of those, the purchase of Massive is a way of developing another. If the end game is to build marketplace up to a level where it can support Xbox Live itself (i.e. no more subscription costs) then you could see some logic in their thinking here.

Ultimately that is the Sony business model which will fund PSN. Do not be surprised to see similar sharp practice there as they've no other revenue model to fall back on and they haven't had a few years of subscriptions to build their infrastructure.

I'm not saying this is the way it's going down, or even trying to defend them. I would encourage anyone who feels strongly about it to vote with their wallets as that's the only way to make any impact. Just something to think about.