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How EA Built Battlefield Heroes To Be Free

Posted by Soulskill on from the free-as-in-beer dept.

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.

37 comments

  1. Abnormal? by crossmr · · 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/) has been set up for a couple years, though I think its just a US front for a Korean company. Perfect World US (international) just launched as well which functions on the same business model.

    1. Re:Abnormal? by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    2. Re:Abnormal? by crossmr · · Score: 1

      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.

    3. Re:Abnormal? by poetmatt · · Score: 1

      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?

    4. Re:Abnormal? by crossmr · · Score: 1

      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. You invest time, they invest money. Its your choice as to how you want to get to level 50. At level 50 you're both the same. You have the same abilities and the same powers. There is no imbalance there. If you think the only way to get to level 50 is to grind, then do it and play another game. Obviously the people who play these games have no issue making the choice between grinding and buying an experience point boost. Play against people who are the same level as you, not dependent on how long they've been in the game.

      As for power items, that is a different story. Neowiz to my knowledge doesn't do game changing items. EA was going to do a gun as a cash item but I believe they backed off on that. Neowiz does things like XP bonuses, money bonus (in the terms of the first person shooter where you get static cash after each round, its the equivalent to an experience bonus in an MMORPG) and they do aesthetic things. Perfect world lets you buy outfits you can wear instead of armor that have no properties of their own.

    5. Re:Abnormal? by doyoulikeworms · · Score: 1

      abnormal != unique

    6. Re:Abnormal? by crossmr · · Score: 1

      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.

    7. Re:Abnormal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      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. ... is the wonderful ideal.

      Have you played any of these "asian games"?

      Of course they all promised it would never happen but once they started sucking on this evil teat of pay-for-items, the usual corporate greed kicked in and now essentially all of them are nothing but a spending competition.
      Try any Chinese MMO, they're basically all the same now, hence many people here end up becoming disgruntled and shift to WoW or quit entirely.

      If they are a grind, they are only even that at the highest level; once you have spent enough to get into the top tiers.

      And yet the suckers just keep lining up, who could blame them for selling out when it works so well?
      http://www.forbes.com/global/2007/1112/076.html
      (Sorry, hard to find much info in English but you'll find "free" MMOs in China are raking in billions by pitting players against each other in exactly these spending matches)

      Yes, I'm sure EA have made all sorts of promises of this not happening, but it's a slippery slope... and it is EA we're talking about, not exactly a great history of taking any ideal over profit.

    8. Re:Abnormal? by Phyvo · · Score: 1

      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 *honest* about the imbalance between characters, but that doesn't mean that the imbalance doesn't exist.

      Now, theoretically speaking, there could be some kind of middle ground where, for the average person playing the game, time spent is effectively equal to money spent in terms of opportunity costs. But aside from the fact that most people are not the average person, I find it hard to believe that any company wouldn't tend to favor the money buyers more. Money buyers are where the money comes from, and it is always in the company's interest to increase the number of players buying XP. Sure, they can't just resort to forcing everyone to buy XP, but if they can get you hookaed on the game because it's free, then make you want to buy XP to keep up with everyone else... that's what they're after with these systems. A side effect to all this is that the game loses a lot of its game design flexibility and wider appeal to the gaming market. Well, the latter mostly applies to the US.

  2. Unusual for EA? by 77Punker · · Score: 2, 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.

    1. Re:Unusual for EA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I own all of the games in the Battlefield series and I completely agree with you. Battlefield 1942 and its expansions were the best. Vietnam was alright, but some of the gameplay was frustrating (possibly because of all of the brush and guerrilla tactics). The rest...ugh. They all lack the balanced, yet varied gameplay of land, sea, and air combat 1942 had.

    2. Re:Unusual for EA? by Threni · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > 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 the older ones die almost immediately. You can probably find some clan sites near you if you're lucky. I got 1942 but couldn't play it online. I got vietnam and it was the reason I got broadband. It was shortly before BF2 came out. I played that game loads - probably my favourite PC game ever. But EA got greedy and instead of releasing promised maps for free started selling packs with a few levels but more sadly extra weapons which weren't available for regular players. I didn't want to pay extra, and competing with superior characters, or having a server rotate the maps onto a level I didn't have sucked, so I stopped playing. The Battlefield game after that, set in the future (forgot the name) I looked at briefly but the demo sucked and I just couldn't be bothered with it. I didn't play a FPS for a few years.

      Recently I discovered Open Arena, an excellent free Quake 3 game with many, populated servers full of very hard to kill players! I might check out this Heroes game if it's good and free, but I'm sure EA will find a way to screw it up!

  3. Free Sounds Good.... by WiiVault · · Score: 1, 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.

    1. Re:Free Sounds Good.... by eebra82 · · Score: 4, 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.

      --
      Full Tilt
    2. Re:Free Sounds Good.... by Threni · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > 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?

    3. Re:Free Sounds Good.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      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.

      They will adapt by complaining that these lost sales are due to 'piracy'. Too many people are going to buy the games anyway, accepting the DRM without realising it.

      I bought all the Battlefield series games but have no plan to buy any more EA games. DRM is a factor but the main issue for me is ridiculously easy it was to exploit or crack these games to allow people to cheat. Patches to fix these problems were slow to be released and ineffective.

    4. Re:Free Sounds Good.... by Per+Abrahamsen · · Score: 1

      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.

    5. Re:Free Sounds Good.... by Threni · · Score: 1

      >> 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 find that one day there's some software which you want to run on your PC but before you can run it you have to give Microsoft some more money. I mean, you could say "ah - what if that software only runs on Vista" but that's a difference OS. I don't mind EA releasing new games - I think they should, because some of them are good, but once a given game is released there shouldn't be any obligation on the part of existing customers to pay more money or lose out. It wasn't as if the extra pack for BF2 provided new players in new maps only - it allowed those new players to play on existing maps but with superior weapons. There are arguments for or against that decision, certainly, but a perfectly valid argument against it is that it constitutes `milking` of existing customers if they want to compete on level terms with them. You have to add, say £20 to the £30 you already bought. £50 is a lot of money for a computer game.

    6. Re:Free Sounds Good.... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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 generated, it can ultimately kill a franchise the player may love. We've seen EA (and, in fairness, other large publishers) purchase and subsequently kill popular franchises.

      No one begrudges any developer or publisher continuing a successful franchise (indeed, fans are sometimes disgruntled when this doesn't happen). As with most things in life - it's all about moderation.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  4. TF2 Clone? by Hadlock · · Score: 1

    I like how they only reference TF2 once. The visual style is a cheap knock off of TF2 among other things.

    --
    moox. for a new generation.
    1. Re:TF2 Clone? by mweather · · Score: 1

      BF Heroes is to TF2 as Futurama is to Mickey Mouse.

    2. Re:TF2 Clone? by LingNoi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:TF2 Clone? by mweather · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They are both cell shaded.

    4. Re:TF2 Clone? by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      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, its two or three steps above battlefield and has moved from a high b level title to a really shining A level title. The fact that they continue to release new, signficant updates maps weapons taunts and more on an almost monthly basis blows any other team based fps out of the water. Battlefield has a lot of ground to make up before it can compete in the big leauges. Fantasia is to the last unicorn. Valve if you need a pr rep I'm free

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    5. Re:TF2 Clone? by Muffinmasher · · Score: 1

      No, actually Team Fortress 2 (and possibly Battlefield: Heroes, I haven't really looked into it)is not cel shaded. Although it does look cartoonish much like cel shaded games, it doesn't have the hard outlines or 2d appearance of those games. What it actually uses is a process called "phong shading" along with purposely cartoon style models and simple textures.

      --
      Schrödinger's download is slow.
    6. Re:TF2 Clone? by mweather · · Score: 1

      I don't know, the pictures here don't look like they have hard lines, or 2d: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cel-shaded_animation And it says "Cel-shaded animation (also called cel-shading or toon shading) is a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make computer graphics appear to be hand-drawn." They are cell shaded games that utilise phong shading.

    7. Re:TF2 Clone? by Slovenian6474 · · Score: 1

      Who cares? Can't one like both Call of Duty 4 AND Battlefield 2? Worst case scenario: you download a free game, play it, it sucks, you uninstall it.

    8. Re:TF2 Clone? by Muffinmasher · · Score: 1

      The examples there DO have hard lines, I don't know what you're looking at. TF2 doesn't look hand drawn at all, just stylistically proportioned, with shiny lighting/reflections and simple textures with few colors.

      --
      Schrödinger's download is slow.
  5. Re:gameplay vid. by LingNoi · · Score: 1

    parent is a rick roll

  6. DRM? by microAmp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What are the chances of EA putting Securom on this free game?

    1. Re:DRM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Almost guaranteed - the Bioshock demo shipping with its
      DRM schemes implemented comes to mind.

    2. Re:DRM? by azuredrake · · Score: 1

      What would be the point? There's no used games market to kill with a free downloadable title...

      --
      Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
    3. Re:DRM? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      100% unless they change to Solidshield or something similar. And for your information EA has been using very Securom for a long time for CD/DVD copy protection.

  7. Re:TF2 Clone? Answer: No. by nedwidek · · Score: 1

    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.

    --
    Post anonymously - For when your opinion embarrasses even you!