Last week the Internet went into an unnecessary uproar over Burnout: Paradise’s requirement of a hard drive for online play. I have always seen it as such: if you want to use next-generation features you need to buy next-generation peripherals. Apparently the Internet community doesn’t see that this way and Criterion is the freaking devil.

There is a method to their madness, it seems, and Criterion has explained that downloadable content is responsible for the requirement. Most games require DLC to be owned by everyone playing in the game because it needs to be loaded on the hard drive in order to access it. According to Criterion, gamers will be able to play with others who have downloaded the upcoming additions to the game with those who are too damn cheap.

“It’s our intention to extend the life of Burnout with additional DLC in the near future. As mentioned, we don’t want to split the online community between those that have content and those that don’t. Our intention is to offer both free and paid for DLC in a way that enables everyone to ’see’ the content, even if they have not paid for it.”

In other words, “it’s a community thing, and no one wants to bash anything with “community” in the name!” There is EA, being tragically hip, like we all knew they were. They do have a really good point and, just as usual, the internet drama llamas overreacted to something they didn't understand.

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