Last night, the Gears of War patch went live, free of charge of course. The long awaited map pack for Gears of War however won’t be free… at first. Epic’s VP Mark Rein has gone on record to say that you’ll have to dish out some Microsoft Points to get future content.
The reason for this mainly is because of an internal power struggle between Microsoft and Epic about pricing the maps. Mark Rein via a forum post on Evil Avatar clarified that, “Epic thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to give the maps away for free and Microsoft thinks the way to maximize the return on Gears of War is to sell the maps.â€
The dispute concluded, with Epic and Microsoft agreeing to make the map pack cost a fair price for the first three months, then afterwards becoming free. Everyone wins in the end, except the hardcore Gears players. Sorry guys!