Gaming News: Battlefield: Bad Company Releases June 23

EA announced that Battlefield: Bad Company will ship out June 23 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Electronic Arts recently faced some controversy over the inclusion of for-purchase downloadable weapons in the game. 10 firearms appeared to be available only as downloadable content or through the purchase of the collector's edition of the game which led to SarcasticGamer organizing a boycott. EA however quickly backed away and has recently told GameSpot that all weapons will now be included in the game's purchase price, but standard-edition buyers will need to unlock them by playing the game.

Karl-Magnus Troedsson, senior producer on Battlefield: Bad Company, laid out the situation for GameSpot in a recent interview.

"It all started when the beta came out," said Troedsson. "The beta is a beta. We had some problems with explanation of the weapons that are available or you can see on the unlocking page. We had some weapons that we were planning to release through various marketing programs, but they were actually flagged there like you were supposed to buy these weapons through Xbox Live Marketplace, and that was a misunderstanding between marketing and us the developers. We clarified that in the last statement that went out, but lately there's been a lot going on about the Gold Edition weapons."

"I should pretty much start at the end, we listen a lot to what people say out there. I think that's important to show, because we don't have time to comment on everything, because there's so much noise out there, but DICE is built upon the multiplayer community, and we do listen to what people say out there. When we saw this big uprise about people that really felt it was dissatisfying that some people bought the Gold Edition, those five weapons you couldn't get or that you had to buy if you had the ordinary version of the game, that we just decided that all weapons will be free in the game, and that's how it is now."

"These Gold Edition weapons, we won't give away, you have to do something as a gamer. The Gold Edition guys and girls that actually buy that game will have some time where the weapons are exclusive, because if you don't buy the Gold Edition, you have to earn them. That means you have to rank up all the way to the top rank, which is rank 25, and then you have a massive unlock of five new weapons which are the same that are in the Gold Edition."

The standard edition carries a $59.99 price tag, while the Gold Edition--which includes unlocked versions of the five controversial weapons and various behind-the-scenes bonuses--will run for $69.99