How EA Built Battlefield Heroes To Be Free 37
The Development Director for EA's upcoming free-to-play action game, Battlefield Heroes, spoke with Gamasutra at the Austin Game Developers Conference about creating the game under an abnormal business model (abnormal for EA, anyway). He spoke about using the "Scrum" development model, and how the web platform was the most difficult part to create. Gamespy has written some initial impressions, and Joystiq has a basic description of the game.
Abnormal? (Score:2, Informative)
EA is trying to sound like they're doing something special.
A couple years ago they bought a 20% stake in a Korean company called Neowiz. They've been making an entire business (not just one game) out this kind of a model for years.
What did EA do?
Copy it.
Yes. Brilliant, let's heap attention on their shrewd business ability to buy a big stake in a company and then copy their product to another market.
Let's also know forget that EA isn't the first company to do this in the US either (http://www.aeriagames.com/
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes in Asia (Korea/China especially) it's very normal and has been going on so it might not sound new as such?
Yet it's still a pretty impressive leap of faith for a major US-based publisher to be doing it.
Just a bit sad in that it tends to lead to horribly imbalanced awkward games as they push the idea harder and harder for more $, and Battlefield was a pretty good series once upon a time.
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None of the asian games are unbalanced. The bonuses usually come in the form of experience point bonuses, etc. Not things that would undermine player v player.
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Hello? This is what creates the imbalance.
Asian games are set up with "infinite level grinds", where you can always be stronger if you grind for XYZ amount of time to gain another level of the hundreds+.
So yes, it does undermine pvp when you're a level 50 who's been playing for 3 months and they're a level 120 who's been playing for 3 months, but for 1/3 as much time over those 3 months in addition.
Or if you create super power cash shop items. Well then, what does that sound like?
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No, it just means they're the same level. Some people can spend the game grinding and after 3 months they're level 50. other people after 3 months are only level 20. How does letting that person get to level 50 in the same time make an imbalance? They're both still level 50.
If you're trying to talk about some kind of abstract in that it isn't balanced to let one person buy their way quickly to level 50 instead of stand around grinding, then you're just whining because you don't want to spend the money on it
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Well, it's all well and good to say that since level 50 = level 50 everyone is ok and has happy days. What you fail to realize, however, that now the difference between the level buyer and the level grinder is that they have different level numbers. And since level = power, it's just the same old thing over again with money = power. Someone might possibly be able to keep up by sacrificing his life instead of his money, but who wants to sacrifice their life for a video game? In the end the game is more *hone
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except the talk has been for at least the last year or two that games would be moving this way so its hardly unusual either. Many games feature downloadable content you have to buy, this is a slight extension of this, but an extension that has existed elsewhere for years and been done by other companies in the US.
Unusual for EA? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't understand what's unusual about EA releasing too many sequels to an otherwise excellent franchise.
Admittedly, the only Battlefield game I've played much was 1942, but that was one of the best PC games I've ever played. I never bought any of the sequels because BF:Vietnam was released while 1942 still had thousands of active servers at any given time and I could tell they were just going to run it into the ground like all their other franchises. Since Heroes will be free I'll give it a shot, but I bet they'll find a way to make it suck.
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> Admittedly, the only Battlefield game I've played much was 1942, but that was one of the best PC games I've ever played. I never bought any of the
> sequels because BF:Vietnam was released while 1942 still had thousands of active servers at any given time and I could tell they were just going
> to run it into the ground like all their other franchises. Since Heroes will be free I'll give it a shot, but I bet they'll find a way to make it
>suck.
When a new Battlefield game game out, the servers for
Free Sounds Good.... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Free Sounds Good.... (Score:5, Informative)
But I learned long ago that EA will milk its customers until they can barely stand it. Spore DRM, yearly rehashes and abusive ads make me concerned.
I'm not a big fan of EA myself, but blaming EA for wanting to make money - or milk its customers like you call it - is kind of silly since every company wants to maximize their winnings per customer.
Complaining about Spore DRM is one thing, but refusing to buy the game is far more effective if you want to make your point. If we stop buying DRM bloated games, they will have to adapt. If a lot of people buy Spore anyway, they will just release bogus statements about how much they care about us and keep doing it in future titles.
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> I'm not a big fan of EA myself, but blaming EA for wanting to make money - or milk its customers like you call it - is kind of silly since every
> company wants to maximize their winnings per customer.
No-ones complaining because EA wants to make money; they're complaining because they like to milk their customers. Understand?
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No-ones complaining because EA wants to make money; they're complaining because they like to milk their customers. Understand?
No. Can you elaborate on the difference?
Unless "milk" is not a metaphor for something else, in that case, please do not elaborate.
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>> No-ones complaining because EA wants to make money; they're complaining because they like to milk their customers. Understand?
> No. Can you elaborate on the difference?
Certainly. Microsoft is pretty hard-nosed in business. You pay for XP, for example, and it costs more than some laptops it can run on. But once you've paid for it, you are entitled to years of support, upgrades, bug fixes and service packs which are all completely free. They don't charge for SP2 or anything else. You don't fi
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No. Can you elaborate on the difference?
Unless "milk" is not a metaphor for something else, in that case, please do not elaborate.
The best business transactions are when parties exchange money for a product, and both feel good about the deal. That's normal, healthy economics at work. When consumers feel that a company simply takes advantage of previous successes and stops innovating, and starts diluting a previously successful brand in order to make a short-term profit, that's "milking".
This can have a negative effect with games with an online component, as old servers die out when sequels are released. And, with enough bad will ge
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parent is a rick roll
TF2 Clone? (Score:2)
I like how they only reference TF2 once. The visual style is a cheap knock off of TF2 among other things.
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Would you like to back up that statement with anything because the parent has a point.
This is EA's TF2 killer and it does look like a cheap knock off with the same game play mechanics.
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Re:TF2 Clone? Answer: No. (Score:2)
Would you like to back up that statement with anything because the parent has a point.
This is EA's TF2 killer and it does look like a cheap knock off with the same game play mechanics.
I play TF2 and I am a BF:Heroes beta tester. I can tell you they are nothing like each other except for they both use cell shading. The game play is very different. Definitely not intended to compete with or be a TF2 killer.
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You're either a blatant troll (yes) or you didn't read the article and see the screencaps. The art looks horrifically bad, even compared to TF2s early beta art. TF2 has seen at least one significant engine revamp, multiple physics particle effects and facial animation tweaks since the game was released almost a year ago. I dare you to try out tf2 on a free weekend and tell me that those battlefield screenshots don't look like 3rd rate cheap chinese knockoff artwork of Team Fortress 2. Its not a step above,
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DRM? (Score:2, Insightful)
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