It’s been a long, and I do mean long, time coming, but it’s now official: No more beta keys needed to get in on the cartoonish Battlefield Heroes fun. While EA chose to ignore the traditional press release route, the announcement was confirmed on the Battlefield Heroes forum, stating that the Security Layer is gone, no need for a beta key, and the NDA has been lifted. W00t!
EA’s quietly been letting more and more players in on the browser based, free-to-play fun for over a year now, and the lack of press release may suggest that EA learned a lesson or two from the Quake Live mad dash, people locked out, potential customer lost fiasco that occurred when the other popular free-to-play online title went live.
While we’ve covered the ongoing trials and tribulations of actually making it to public launch day, a quick refresher. Battlefield Heroes is one of the growing number of free-to-play titles that NoCal gaming giant Electronic Arts has been slowly adding to their offerings. Loosely based on DICE’s highly successful Battlefield series, this cartoonish fighter pits two opposing sides against each other, with a wide variety of fighting options. Tanks, planes, heck, riding on plane wings, it’s all available.
The game is supported through in-game advertising and character customization microtransactions. The ads appear only in pre-roll format, and the microtransactions are both reasonably priced and feature enough customizations to make even the staunchest of ‘I’m not paying for it’ microtransaction haters have a smile, and perhaps a click through to purchase. Initially, EA and DICE reported that microtransaction items would only take the form of cosmetic upgrades, but it appears as though “convenience” items have now been added to the list of available goodies. While I didn’t see anything that would provide an overwhelming boost in performance, it’s entirely possible that these items are there to help speed those along that either do not or can not play as long as other Battlefield Heroes players.
By opening the game slowly and fine-tuning this, that and the other firmly signals EA’s commitment to this project. All too often in today’s free-to-play market, we see a title brought to market that may be fraught with bugs and serious design flaws, with developers intentions to address them and fix them as soon as possible. EA/DICE have done this to some extent, by delaying the public opening by over a year, but at the same time, more or less letting anyone who wanted to play in the door with a wink, a nod, and a not-so-hard-to-obtain beta key.
Now that the doors are wide open, it’s time for the rest of us to sit back and see just how much appeal Battlefield Heroes has to the general populace. That, and head shot a few n00bs in the process. See ya on the Battlefield!
http://www.battlefieldheroes.com/
Tags: Battlefield Heroes, DICE, EA, electronic arts, free to play, IGA, in-game advertising, microtransactions
