Okay, its a bit late here and I'm tired so I won't go into a too long of a post, plus I'm just a humble developer and know not too much about the fine details of the publishing plans and business models... But to keep it simple:
You won't be paying anything for normal patches as they appear after the release. Everything is like before and we continue to support the game post-release as per usual free of charge. So I'm not sure where this idea came from ?
What Miles is talking about is that in case we don't get the boxed version of NHL EHM 2005 (the version based on 2004/05 season and released in Europe this month) into retail in NA at the same time as Europe, then it will still be available as a digital download version. Then, we'd continue supporting the current version over the summer as usual with above mentioned free patches made available as deemed necessary. But also, aside from just supporting the 2004/05 version, we'd work with our research team over the summer months to update the game and the database based on the upcoming 2005/06 season rules/structures and rosters as well as naturally making the new game start from the new season and maybe chipping in with a few new features as well. So in a way it would be a "season update" in relation to the current NHL EHM 2005 we have just completed. For North American retail, it would be the next full boxed version of NHL EHM since the first one, hence a normal price tag. For digital download customers, it would just be a cheap season update and the same for owners of the european boxed version. Now as Miles said, these are only plans and nothing has been set in stone about when the NA release will happen yet. I believe there will be some meetings about this during E3 next week so we'll know more about this after that.
And again, after this release the game would enjoy the usual post-release support with patches/updates free of charge as per norm.
As for this bit:
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and i hope after i purchase the game in the US store, that any future patches, update roster and update rules, we dont get charge for a reduced price to download it.
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Patches are always free as per usual. Roster updates are a possibility during the season featured in the game, but I cannot make any promises on those. But updating league rules for free ? As nice and exciting as it sounds to a text-sim player to have a game where you'd just buy it once and get league rules and rosters updated every new season for free, it just ain't going to happen with a commercial game. The development is not just about coding new features into the game but also maintaining and updating all the league rules. It may be different when a game features just one league like the NHL and the rules stay 99% the same for most of the time from season to season. But just look at even leagues like the AHL or ECHL not to mention a host of European leagues. The league formats and rules change almost yearly and changing them is in most cases not just a one-line change but might require new code and as usual some extensive testing as well. And it all takes time to do and time costs money as they say. So updating all the leagues in the game to the new season as well as doing the additional research to update the database means spending time and money on development. Which in turn means that providing an update like that would have to have a small price tag on it to cover the costs. Just because a game goes out of sync with real life league rules after a certain time when the next real life season starts, does not mean it then somehow becomes a bug that the game has different rules. And it certainly does not mean that the developers then need to fix this "bug" by updating the game with the new league rules and basically giving out a free new version of the game.
Hope this clears it up a bit as well
