Hey there paying customer! Did you recently purchase Battlefield: Bad Company 2? Are you sick and tired of high level characters killing you with their M60s with 4x scopes?  
 
Suffer no more! Introducing "Kit-Shortcuts", and with a small price of $6.99 per-kit, or $19.99 for all kits and vehicles, we will give you all of the unlocks for that kit! That's right, give us $6.99 and you won't have to level up and unlock those weapons. 
  
I am glad EA is providing such a useful service for such a reasonable price. 
 
Don't believe me? Check the blog here.

Hey there paying customer! Did you recently purchase Battlefield: Bad Company 2? Are you sick and tired of high level characters killing you with their M60s with 4x scopes?  
 
Suffer no more! Introducing "Kit-Shortcuts", and with a small price of $6.99 per-kit, or $19.99 for all kits and vehicles, we will give you all of the unlocks for that kit! That's right, give us $6.99 and you won't have to level up and unlock those weapons. 
  
I am glad EA is providing such a useful service for such a reasonable price. 
 
Don't believe me? Check the blog here.

So it's not actually power-leveling then... it's power unlocking. /shrug
 
It's not like they're demanding money to make new unlocks available so people could play against others who cannot get them without paying.

You're being sarcastic...right?  I can't wait until you can pay Blizzard $500 for an amazingly geared 80 with 1 million gold.   

" You're being sarcastic...right?  I can't wait until you can pay Blizzard $500 for an amazingly geared 80 with 1 million gold.    "

I'm fine with it as long as they don't offer exclusive things for pay only. The SPECACT thing walks the line because it was just a texture change and doesn't offer any actual gameplay advantage above the standard gear like new kit items would (other than making the Russian Medic's hat stand out less against a snowy background -- which was a shitty design in the first place).

Unlocks can all be done in very early levels and take next to no time compared to the amount you would need to spend progress past level 20.
Why would you pay money for this stuff, ADD?
 
Why you would by the game $60 + $20 for unlocks and not even spend the tiny amount of time playing it that would get you those unlocks anyway...
Kind of a waste imo.

" Unlocks can all be done in very early levels and take next to no time compared to the amount you would need to spend progress past level 20. Why would you pay money for this stuff, ADD?  Why you would by the game $60 + $20 for unlocks and not even spend the tiny amount of time playing it that would get you those unlocks anyway... Kind of a waste imo. "

Dude - whoever ain't got the time to get to level 20 or so within his timebudget better have a big fat wallet. Why shouldn't such dudes pay for their unlocks? No biggy. 
 
Not that I would ever pay for such a thing. I spend what little money I got on games and expesive hookers and good food and booze and occasionally some Mary Jane. The 'effin good life.

BC2, meet BF Heroes...

This type of thing really doesn't bug me.  It takes away the grind for people who don't have time to grind.  Time is money.  It's not a big deal in the end, as the people who put in the time to play and level themself to 20 or w/e, will be better for it (skill-wise), so they'll still have the advantage on the people who just paid to get the cool guns instead of earning them.

I don't have a problem with it. If it helps make Bad Company 2 more competitive online then it's a worthwhile price for some people who have difficulty using different classes. Then again I don't feel a need for it as it's not incredibly hard to unlock all the gear for each class. Just play the game a lot and it's all good. Or I see it that way, anyway.

I don't see the problem as you're paying for the weapons, rather than the levelling and in any case, it's not that hard to get all the weapons in the first place.

Perfectly sensible move. If you want to prevent stuff like this from happening, the only thing you can do is not buy it yourself while remembering that no drop of rain thinks it's responsible for the flood.

So, who wants to put down money that activision will use "paid unlocks" in the next COD/MW game?

"Why you would by the game $60 + $20 for unlocks and not even spend the tiny amount of time playing it that would get you those unlocks anyway... Kind of a waste imo. "

EA sucks hardcore, but BC2 is ok, next they will be trying to sell you an achievement

Haha I can't imagine any actual gamer doing this. If a friend of mine did something like this I would never stop making fun of him. :p

This actually really upsets me. Now I won't be able to tell the difference between who actually spent the time unlocking everything for a kit and who spent money to get everything. 

Wow, I'm surprised Activision didn't release DLC that made you 10th level prestige already.
EA beating them to the punch?

It's just an option.  The high price actually discourages anyone to just buy all the weapons without leveling up.  For those who have the money and don't want to spend too much time playing to level up, they'll buy it.  But for gamers who want to earn these weapons, then don't buy it.  It's aiming for the rich casual players who just want to play immediately.  And it's not mandatory anyway so there's no really point complaining against DICE and EA for offering that option, it won't affect your game.

I think the pricing is great. It's so ridiculously expensive, that really only players who don't have enough time will buy it. Also, whoever buys such a thing has enough money. 
 
20$ is the right price. If it was much less, every nub with some pocketchange would buy them from the get-go.

They can't have no more of my money.

If EA were a person, they'd be whoring their 12 year old daughter.

guess it will be $30 dollars in the next cod game

Its nice that "real" gamers have the time to "earn" everything, but if someone would rather pay some money to skip some tedium I don't see the problem.

" Its nice that "real" gamers have the time to "earn" everything, but if someone would rather pay some money to skip some tedium I don't see the problem. "

For some reason I have this image of my mind of a super douche wallstreet type going for this so he can DOMINATE the game without actually playing it. Skill and practice be damned!

" For some reason I have this image of my mind of a super douche wallstreet type going for this so he can DOMINATE the game without actually playing it. Skill and practice be damned! "

If people want to pay more money to unlock all the items go right ahead. The one thing EA/Dice can't sell them is skill, although it wouldn't surprise me if they've got a team working on that :D

 
First of all, I don't think we should say "fuck EA." If you're dumb enough to pay for the unlocks, then I'm all that much happier knowing EA will have a few more bucks to make another great BF game. Also, I will still snipe you with my rpg, one of the beginning unlocks in the engineer class. I might even mow you down with the SAW...2nd gun unlock in the medic class.
 
And second, if the gun you are using is making a huge difference for you, then you're probably already playing at a really high level of play. Most of the guns are good enough to get the job done...it's a player's skill that really matters. Then again, it's a player's ability to work well in a sqaud that gets in done in BFBC2.

cheaters................................................

Just more proof of how gaming is too damn easy these days. Now you can just pay your way to victory. What's the point in that? 

What does it matter?  Honestly, I can do just as good with any weapon in that game as the other.  Hell, most people still use the M24 sniper rifle...which is the first gun in the kit.  The only thing you really get out of it is all the gadgets and additional equipment, and even then, not that big of a deal. 
 
I know I still wreck face on that game, so I'm not worried.

EA is the most authentic publisher.

Look, some people just don't have the time to commit that much time to a single game. Personally I work full time and can't commit a lot of time to any one game I want to play. So I will probably get this to save me some time. Does that make me a bad person? Who knows. But, does it make my limited leisure time more convenient? Absolutely.

It doesn't make you a bad person to buy those kit unlocks, but... you just support the concept of micro-transactions. Things which were once free or simple, are now charged a fee. It's stupid to pay $20 to unlock the weapons because they are already yours; you paid for those weapons already. It's part of the game. Who cares about time invested? "You didn't earn" the weapons??? wtf...
 
I wouldn't care if after some time EA/DICE trickled out weapons to new comers, without having to play a lot of time. But EA wants to use this excuse to make money from something they've already been paid for. It's ridiculous.
 
DICE didn't want to release server files because of the fear of hackers. But even without the server files, there are hackers all over. It's just poor excuse on DICE's part. DICE didn't include prone because they didn't want to slow gameplay down? bullshit, MW2 has prone and that is a fast ADD type of game.
 
DICE has become business-ified. 
 
You guys remember Interplay's old moto?  "For gamers, by gamers" ? or is it "By gamers, for gamers". Such a concept is non-existent today. It's more along the lines of "For gamers, by business oriented ass holes who don't give a shit about the game but only care to  extract every last cent someone has from their fucking pocket".

EA does this for every game. Why buy a game to buy a 10-20 dollar dlc which gives you everything.

  @MooseyMcMan said:

" Just more proof of how gaming is too damn easy these days. Now you can just pay your way to victory. What's the point in that?  "

PSN Store just updated with the shortcut kits.  The full pack and all class-specific packs are listed as a 100KB download.  Flip-a-BIT!
 
Battlefield Bad Company 2 Shortcut Kit ($19.99)
Unlock all kit-specific items across the Assault, Engineer, Medic and Recon multiplayer kits in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Bundle pack also includes the 7 available vehicle unlocks.
File size: 100 KB  
 
About 20 minutes ago I bought the PC version on Steam's sale today.  I think I'll be fine with just that.

Doesn't bother me:
 
Assault - don't play that often
Medic - happy with unscoped PKM (mainly play Engineer/Sniper anyway)
Engineer - happy with AKS74 / UMP SA
Sniper - have all unlocks, and in any event hate anything !SV98
 
I already play against lots of people with superior unlocks to me: it isn't really a problem as (unlike BF2) the unlockable weapons aren't unambiguously better than the defaults, only different.

Dude... uncool. Damn you, capitalism!!

Morality aside. If people are willing to pay for this they would be stupid not to charge for it.

Burnout Paradise had the same thing, nothing new.