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.

Comments

Abnormal?

[crossmr]

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.

Unusual for EA?

[77Punker]

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.

Re:Unusual for EA?

[Threni]

> 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!

Re:Free Sounds Good....

[eebra82]

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.

Re:Free Sounds Good....

[Threni]

> 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?

Re:TF2 Clone?

[LingNoi]

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.

Re:TF2 Clone?

[mweather]

They are both cell shaded.

DRM?

[microAmp]

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

Re:Free Sounds Good....

[Dutch Gun]

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.