An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."

Faithbleed writes "IW's Robert Bowling reports on his twitter account that Infinity Ward is giving 2,500 Modern Warfare 2 cheaters the boot. The news comes as the war between IW and MW2's fans rages over the decision to go with IWnet hosting instead of dedicated servers. Unhappy players were quick to come up with hacks that would allow their own servers and various other changes." Despite the dedicated-server complaints, Modern Warfare 2 has sold ridiculously well.

Lionhead Studios today announced that their next section of downloadable content for Fable II, called See the Future, will be available on May 12th. The new content will include new quests, monsters and items, a Colosseum, and alter egos for the player's dog. Peter Molyneux also hinted at a connection to the next Fable game, saying, "... it would be pretty poor to say See the Future if it didn't have some connection." Further details are available in the latest in Lionhead's series of developer diaries.

Paramount announced yesterday that Star Trek D-A-C will be available for download for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC when the movie is released on May 8th. The acronym in the title stands for different types of gameplay: Deathmatch, Assault, and Conquest. It's an arcade-style game, with a solo mode as well as multiplayer modes that handle up to 12 players. According to Joystiq, "It's a top-down 3D space shooter that doesn't require a lot of hardcore gameplay experience to jump into, but it features a large amount of strategic gameplay that'll please hardcore gamers." Several screenshots have been released.