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How EA Built Battlefield Heroes To Be Free
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.
> 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!
> 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?
They are both cell shaded.
What are the chances of EA putting Securom on this free game?
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.