Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Today, Electronic Arts and DICE have announced a new Battlefield Bad Company 2 mode of gameplay called Onslaught, that adds 4-player co-op play to the Battlefield experience.  However, they have decided to release this new mode of gameplay for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, leaving PC players out in the dust.

Now, I do know for a fact from the numbers that Battlefield Bad Company 2 did exceptionally well on the PC, selling almost as well as its console counterparts.  A lot of this success was centered around the fact that DICE made a point to support the PC community by adding in features like free DLC for those players, as well as the ability to host dedicated servers.  That last point was a big sell point, as it was a feature that the main competitor, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, dropped support for on the PC side.

DICE said repeatedly in interviews and press clippings how important the PC was to their strategy and that they started as a PC development shop with the original Battlefield 1942 franchise, so why stop the love now DICE.  The cynic in me knows that a lot of this probably has to do with monetization of the add-on, as I am sure that there will be a charge for this DLC, and it is far easier to make money for add-ons on the consoles vs. the PCs.  Sure EA has their online store where they have sold DLC in the past, but I doubt it was a huge money maker for them.  I mean, I have to assume that the Mirror’s Edge DLC on PC did not make a huge chunk of change on the store.  But when you make bold claims to support a PC title, and champion your company as a supporter of PC, it just causes a lot of butt hurt when an add-on like this skips over the same platform you are looking to champion.

Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that DICE decided to release Battlefield Bad Company 2 on the PC, as they skipped the platform the first time around.  The game is absolutely fantastic, and both the single player and multiplayer modes are really good, and every PC player should want to play them.  But it makes it a harder sell when all those fans buy the game, and then get stiffed with decisions like this.  I hope this is just a delayed release thing, but the press release that was sent out today specifically called out that this new Onslaught mode was for consoles.

While I doubt DICE is going to read this, let alone have this article change their mind, but I would like to see them live up to the support claims that they made at launch and support the PC by adding this mode to that platform as well.  I mean, it is just the right thing to do, according to their love of the platform.