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Another Battlefield Play4Free studio GM leaves EA
Oskar Burman, general manager of Battlefield Play4Free and Battlefield Heroes developer Easy Studios, has departed from Easy and its parent EA. He's the second GM to leave the position, after Ben Cousins, who left to join ngmoco's Sweden-based studio.Burman has yet to reveal his next destination, though he does have a plan. "New thing is exciting," he noted on Twitter. "More info soon." Whatever the new thing is, it is still in Stockholm.
Battlefield Heroes is far from 'practically ruined,' GM Ben Cousins says
Today's GDC panel on Battlefield Heroes had general manager Ben Cousins rectifying the misconceptions about his studio's first free-to-play Battlefield game being "practically ruined." Cousins' talk centered around the allegations made by press (originating with his game's own forumgoers) that paid weapons were introduced that allegedly unbalanced the game in favor of players willing to shell out cash. Rather than panicking and reacting directly to the loudest voices -- and perhaps some overly reactionary press -- Easy Studio instead applied math. The develoeprs noticed that, despite all the negative attention, user numbers weren't dropping. Furthermore, they took the information of their forum members and discovered that, while the average BFH player would spend around 25 cents per month, forum members were spending -- on average -- about $22 (dollars!) per month. Moreover, the actively complaining population only made up about 2 percent of the overall player base. What Cousins' team discovered as a result is that most folks playing the game really didn't care about the introduction of the paid weapons. Cousins likened it to fancy sports equipment -- while it might impart a slight advantage to folks willing to pay, the disparity was made up for by the game's mechanics. User numbers remained consistent and, eventually, the complaints subsided. Having established what he considers to be this working business model in Heroes, Cousins is confident in East Studio's next effort, Battlefield Play4Free.
Battlefield Play4Free closed beta granted 'access' to 600K participants; Mac version doubtful
Battlefield Play4Free senior producer James Salt told us this week at GDC that the game's closed beta granted access to 600,000 participants; who obviously weren't all online at the same time. He explained that's why for the open beta, starting in April, Easy studio is planning a staggered launch, to avoid a massive "day one" spike of concurrent players that would crash the game. Asked about a Mac version of the free-to-play title, Salt said the game runs on the fifth generation of the Battlefield engine, which was designed for PC. Even if a Mac version could be ported, the update schedule required for a title like this would necessitate a seperate Mac team at Easy for the game -- which isn't currently in place. "It still might happen," Salt added. "But it's going to be quite a fight to make it be [on Mac]." %Gallery-106828%
Battlefield Play4Free dev details Training Point customization
Colin Clarke, a game designer from EA's Easy who's currently working on the Battlefield Play4Free microtransaction-based shooter, has posted some information on the official blog about how the game's class customization system will work. Rather than just choosing to play as a Recon, Medic, Assault or Engineer character, each player will get to fill out two different ability trees: one powering up "Equipment Expertise" (which allows your equipment to be stronger and more versatile) and one working with "Combat Expertise" (which adds versatility regardless of equipment). In other words, one Recon player can spec Equipment and take down targets from long range, while another can go Combat, and actually explore the battlefield, finding and flanking targets as needed. Both, says Clarke, should be valid ways to play, but the plan is that choosing Engineer won't necessarily lock you into one specific playstyle. It's an interesting take on designing and creating a character built for an online shooter like this. Battlefield Play4Free is still in closed beta, though EA is taking registrations right now.
EA kind of announces 'new, unannounced' Battlefield game
According to a tweet from Ben Cousins, general manager of EA's Easy studio, Battlefield fans can start looking forward to a new entry in the franchise. Easy handles free-to-play online games for EA, such as Lord of Ultima and Battlefield Heroes, and this Friday, the studio will show its "new, unannounced" Battlefield game to London press for the first time, Cousins tweeted. Given Easy's current projects, we're inclined to guess the new Battlefield will be another freemium entry in the online space. Of course, does it even exist? It's still "unannounced," after all -- actually, wait, wasn't that tweet kinda the announcement? We're going to need to lay down. Our brain suddenly hurts.
