NCAA Football 10 Charging for Dynasty Boosts

Brian Ekberg of Gamespot has received a beta copy of NCAA Football 10 and is posting content as well as answering questions about the game. You can visit here and add questions of your own. Alarmingly he had this to say earlier today which is gone into more detail in this posting:

I haven’t dipped that far into dynasty mode yet but it looks very simliar to previous years. That said, there is one significant change: You can add an additional pipeline state by paying for it. With real money (MS Points or cash on PSN). In fact, that’s not the only so-called “dynasty accelerators” you can apparently purchase: there’s also recruiting advisor, coaching seminar, toughest places to play boost, school pitches improvements, maximum player training, and recruiting reports as well. According to the game, these boosts will affect every team you control in offline and online dynasty modes. I need to investigate these more to see what they actually do for you…

I’ve never taken issue with offering DLC “cheats” if they could only be utilized offline. If it increases someone’s enjoyment of the game and they see the value in it then that is their decision to make. However any time it factors into online it creates an imbalance and unfair playing field. When I first read about this I was taken aback by the comment about it applying to both offline and online dynasties.

If there is nothing to prevent these being used in Online Dynasty that will be a crushing blow to the legitimacy of the dynasties. Hopefully either these are not permitted or there is a way to block them. It doesn’t sound good though from the way he phrased it coming straight from the game.

Also now comes news that apparently you will only get Teambuilder slots by purchasing the game new. Previously EA inferred that everyone with the game would get 12 slots but Gamestop would offer 13 additional to their preorders. It turns out that you’ll only get the 12 initial slots if the game is bought new, otherwise a code would have to be purchased. Basically buy the game new or else pay to use Teambuilder. This method of offering an incentive for buying new is something that we’ve seen before it’s just unfortunate in this situation because they didn’t make it clear from the start.

For NCAA which is dealing with enough bad buzz right now these are disappointing developments. Coming off NCAA 09 which was my favorite sports game last year due to Online Dynasty it is rough to see it in this state.