Posts Tagged ‘Battlefield Heroes’

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Battlefield Heroes coming to Xbox and PS3?

Monday, May 18th, 2009

The eagle eyed folks over at GOONL!NE caught what might just be a typo over the weekend, but…it begs the question: OMGZ rlly?  The ‘probably just a typo’ in question concerns a listing in the press release section of EA’s site, listing Battlefield Heroes as having a June 2009 release date for both the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360.

Driving suspicion even further, the ‘official’ release date slated for the PC version of BFH is September 2009.  If that is in fact the case, then a June release of both PS3 and Xbox 360 version seems highly unlikely.  Throw a bit of Battlefield Heroes track record of ‘Hold your fire’ in there, and the rumor becoming even more less likely.  But then again…we’ve seen stranger things happen.

bfh

Adding to the mystique, DICE has said in the past that they’re not interested in porting a PC game to a console version, “We could port the engine and do it I just don’t know what we would gain from it. Everyone’s who’s got a 360 or PS3 also will have a PC that can run this game.”  If I can just think out loud for a second, ’ummm, how about millions of gamers around the world that would rather have a seat on the couch instead of behind a desk, something we do all day long?’  The comfort and convenience of a console factor aside, both Xbox and PS3 have been delving further and further into the realm of microtransactions, and is it just me, or would a premier DICE/EA shooter featuring microtransactions not make both the Sony and Microsoft folks’ mouths water with anticipation?

Again, perhaps this is just one big ol’ typographical error on the part of EA, but with E3 just 12 days away now, the timing does seem slightly suspect.  DICE’s comments about no interest in porting the game to a console version were made over a year ago, and as evidenced by this years GDC and the growing interest by developers and publishers worldwide in microtransactions, perhaps the Swedes have changed their minds, and are now interested in opening the floodgates wide open and letting the sofa surfers have a whack at BFH?  No doubt we’ll hear more about this in the coming few weeks, stay tuned….

Update: The head honcho, Ben Cousins of DICE made a statement on the Heroes Dev. Blog:

Contrary to rumours spreading around the internet in the weekend we have no plans to release Battlefield Heroes on either PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

Battlefield Heroes’ mixture of free download (funded by micro-transactions and advertising) and our extensive use of the web for social features means that Heroes is tailor-made for PC.

Ok, fair statement, but are microtransactions and advertising something we’ve not seen on Xbox 360 or PS3?  As far as using the web for social features, I can’t really see how bringing this to a console would kill said features.  With that said, if DICE has no interest, so be it, but wouldn’t it be truly freakin’ awesome to see this one come to consoles?  Rumors (and associated interest) have made the impossible possible in the past.

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Free-to-play Maple Story ranks among top moneymaking MMO’s of 2008.

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

DFC Intelligence is gearing up to publish a comprehensive study of MMO worlds next month, according to GigaOm.  Wagner James Au got a special preview of the report and shares some initial estimates.

DFC’s David Cole says that the 2008 numbers are on the “very conservative” side, indicating that the 2008 numbers are still being crunched, and more exact numbers will be reflected in the February 16th reports.  “We indicate ranges because these numbers are estimates for 2008 based on where we think these products will end up,” said Cole.  And while the numbers are still being tallied, Cole estimates that the rankings should stay more or less the same, with “maybe a slot here or there” changing.

And while it shouldn’t come as a shock that the Blizzard powerhouse World of Warcraft takes the number one spot, Cole believes that if viewed from a pure profit margin, WoW wouldn’t be taking home the gold.  Asian MMO’s, which are traditionally developed at far lower budgets, have a much higher profit margin.  “Profit margin on Asian games is incredibly high,” says Cole, noting that Asian MMOs charge on or around 5-6 cents per hour with prepaid usage cards, a business model that has yet to proliferate the western gaming market.

What’s interesting to note in this projected report is the high ranking of Nexon’s free-to-play Maple Story (supported by microtransactions, prepaid cards, and international licensing), and the catalogue of Shanda’s games (Virtual item sales, prepaid cards, and freemium subscriptions).

1. World of Warcraft, launched 2004
Genre/Platform: Western MMORPG; client install with 3D graphics
Revenue sources: Monthly subscription, retails sales, prepaid cards (in Asia)
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $500 million-plus

2. Fantasy Westward Journey, launched 2004
Genre/Platform: Asian MMORPG, client install with 2.5D graphics
Revenue sources: Prepaid cards
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $150-$500 million

3. Maple Story, launched 2003
Genre/Platform: Asian MMORPG for kids, client install with 2D graphics
Revenue sources: Microtransactions, prepaid cards, international licensing
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $150-$500 million

4. Shanda (company, includes Legend of Mir and World of Legend series), launched 2003
Genre/Platform: Asian MMORPG, client install with 2.5 graphics
Revenue sources: Prepaid cards, virtual item sales, freemium subscriptions
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $150-$500 million

5. Lineage I and Lineage II , launched 1998 and 2003
Genre/Platform: Asian MMORPG, client install with 2.5 graphics (Lineage) and 3D graphics (Lineage II)
Revenue sources: Subscription, prepaid cards
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $150-$500 million

6. Runescape
Genre/Platform: Western MMORPG for kids, web-based with 2.5D graphics
Revenue sources: Premium subscription, prepaid cards, real-world advertising
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $50-$150 million

7. Club Penguin, launched 2006
Genre/Platform: Virtual world for kids, web-based 2.5D graphics
Revenue sources: Premium subscriptions, prepaid game cards
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $50-$150 million

8. Lord of the Ring Online
Genre/Platform: Western MMORPG, client install with 3D graphics
Revenue sources: Subscription, retail sales
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $50-$150 million

9. Warhammer Online
Genre/Platform: Western MMORPG, client install with 3D graphics
Revenue sources: Subscription, retail sales
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $50-$150 million

10. Age of Conan
Genre/Platform: Western MMORPG, client install with 3D graphics
Revenue sources: Subscription, retail sales
DFC estimated 2008 revenue: $50-$150 million

Wagner continues his conversation with Cole around the most popular, in terms of active players, MMO of 2008.  To answer this question, we’ve got to go even a bit further out on the speculation branch, but Cole points out that Fantasy Westward Journey registered 2-3 million concurrent players back in August.  And although Warcraft likes to beat it’s own drum regarding their estimated 11 million+ players, “You’re lucky to get 5-10 percent [of them] playing at the same time,” says Cole.  Minho Kim, developer of Maple Story said in December that the title has 87+ million registrations, but wouldn’t comment on how many of these registered users were/are active monthly users.  Joost van Dreunen from DFC’ estimates the number to be more in the 13 – 17.4 million regular Maple Story players, roughly 15-20 percent of Kim’s estimation.

Cole admits that this year’s list looks remarkably similar to the 2007 list with Conan and Warhammer being released in 2008.  And while only 2 of the top 10 contain some type of microtransaction support, I’d estimate that this list might look very different one year from now with a number of highly anticipated (think Free Realms and Battlefield Heroes) free-to-plays coming online in ’09.

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Turbine seeks microtransactions manager

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

With more and more Western development companies starting to see the light, or at least investigate and test the waters of microtransactions, 2009 looks like it might very well be the year of RMT and/or MTX.  More and more western developers simply can’t ignore Nexon’s run away success, doubling and tripling revenues from the previous year.  SOE is a prime example with the recent EverQuest and EverQuest II introductions of items available via an in-game shop, not to mention ‘home’.  EA is still working hard on microtransaction based Battlefield Heroes, and now Turbine is recruiting for a new position.

Despite recent staff cuts, Turbine’s Westwood, Massachusetts office is currently recruiting for a “microtransactions/e-commerce manager” who’s job responsibilities will include “delivering and maximizing the revenue derived from Turbine’s micro-transaction-based in-game store.”

While Turbine has kicked this idea around in a number of interviews, they’ve never given a truly concrete answer, but this job ad certainly hails a new direction for Turbine. 

While the Eastern market has a tendancy to lean on the ‘pay to pwn’ style of play, offering players superior items (mainly weapons and armor), this concept hasn’t really taken off in the Western market, where players like a more balanced play style, but do support cosmetic and non-stat enhancing items.  Turbine has played a lot of cards right in the past, and it would be a mighty stretch for them to botch this kind of deal.  If anything, I’m willing to bet the farm on the fact that Turbine is obviously going to respect the market that they’re working in and only offer cosmetic upgrades.  Then again – I may be entirely wrong, which, I hope for Turbine’s sake, I’m not.

Turbine’s responsibilities for this microtransaction/e-commerce manager include:

 

  • Deliver sales and drive growth in monthly in-game transaction amount and frequency through merchandising and price/product mix optimization
  • Recommend and implement in-game store offerings and promotions
  • Use web analytics tools to optimize store layout, flow, and user experience
  • Develop product catalog and roll-out plans for new product offerings
  • Provide detailed reports and analysis of sales, traffic, and in-game merchandising
  • Create and deploy email promotions to drive players to the in-game store
  • Work with product development to balance the in-game economy and ensure that revenue driving game features and items are available to players
  • Keep abreast of competitor and micro-transaction/e-commerce practices
  • Identify short and long term product initiatives and opportunities for meeting goals and driving revenue

 

 

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EA’s Star Wars microtransaction based economy?

Friday, December 12th, 2008

Well it wouldn’t be a week without at least discussing the flurry of activity surrounding EA CEO John Riccitello’s ‘misunderstood’ comments regarding BioWare’s upcoming Star Wars MMO: The Old Republic.  Nick Breckon and Chris Faylor at shacknews first broke the story on Wednesday at 1 in the morning, and ignited a series of comments, forum posts and he said/she saids.

The comment(s) from Riccitello in question:

“We are continuing to stick to the plan relative to building out our direct-to-consumer models which include microtransactions and subscriptions,” said EA CEO John Riccitiello in a conference call today. “The recent launch of Warhammer [Online] is a great example of that.”

“Other initiatives we’ve announced, for example [the] Star Wars online MMO, are mid-session games which are microtransaction-based,” he continued. “You’ll be hearing more about those in the February [conference] call.”

As shacknews goes on to point out, other “mid-session” titles in the EA stables include FIFA Online and NBA Street, both of which are free and then supported by microtransactions.

EA obviously has a valid interest in microtransaction based titles, but with their flagship Battlefield Heroes still mired in the springtime mud outside of Moscow, perhaps EA is looking to other titles to test the waters with?  To be clear, I’m quite certain that EA has no plans of dropping Battlefield Heroes anytime soon, but based on the relative success of their “mid-session” microtransaction based games, especially FIFA in Asian markets, perhaps they’re comfortable with testing other waters?  During the conference call, Riccitello did discuss online gameplay and monetization (read: microtransactions) as a “global, not just Asia phenomenon.”

The Old Republic is currently being billed as a large-scale MMO (AAA title) with a number of single player attributes including dynamic NPC’s that will act as companions.  BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka has been quoted as saying, “Knights of the Old Republic] 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and beyond,” with the official FAQ stating, “the majority of the game can be accomplished by playing alone.”  If that doesn’t sound like a launching board for microtransactions….I’m not sure what does.

Duly noted: shacknews did receive word from EA, and appropriately updated their post with “no statements have been made about the Star Wars business model,” and attributing Mr. Riccitiello’s comments to a misunderstanding.

So is that a yes, or a no?  Obviously, EA is going to respond in that manner, as an admission of microtransactions in a western top tier game would certainly rock the proverbial boat.  Looking at the context of Riccitello’s comments, and where Star Wars falls in the EA hierarchy, could this have been an accidental slip o’ the tongue?  Certainly John’s got 99% of what he’s going to say prepared, but perhaps there was a bit of a slip in the heat of battle?  Who knows.  Maybe I’m complete off here, but then again, shacknews and a number of other commenters have already started the pro and con vocalization.

Either way – EA/BioWare just got the kind of publicity you can’t buy.

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Battlefield Heroes – Hold your fire! Until 2009

Friday, November 14th, 2008

Dice, the developers of the highly anticipated free-to-play title under the EA banner, Battlefield Heroes has recently announced that they’re putting the breaks on the official release date until 2009.

Dice Senior Producer James Salt posted to the games site (see below), citing backend issues as causing the snag.  The quick and dirty looks like this: While the frontend, the interface and gameplay that users experience is running quite well, beta tester feedback has been heard and applied, it’s all the backend features (up to 90% of the actual ‘game’) that aren’t quite up to par.  Rather than rush what could and should be a flagship model of the free-to-play industry to market, Dice/EA are making a wise decision by closing the doors and retooling the system.  The closed beta servers will have the plug pulled at 6pm CET, and will remain closed until further notice.

James Salts’ post:

Hello Heroes,

Been a looooong time since our last update. I want to apologise to you all for that.

So what have we been up to?

Well, the obvious answer is that we’ve been hard at work on the beta. To give you more detail, part of what makes Battlefield: Heroes unique is that it is equal parts game and website. On the game side, we’ve been listening to feedback from the lucky beta people, who have been a tremendous help to us in balancing the gameplay, squashing bugs and improving the overall quality of the game.

On to the other half of the Battlefield Heroes experience: the website.

We have also been working hard on the parts of the beta that aren’t the game. Sound weird? Let me try and explain: You know the old saying about icebergs being 10% above water, and 90% below? Heroes is a little like that. There’s the 10% game part you can see, and the hiding 90% is what we call the ‘backend’. The backend does a lot of things. From running the website’s features and looking after the items you have, to collecting the results from each Heroes game and matchmaking players into games.

We have received lots of great feedback from our beta testers. So much so that we are now ready to enter our next phase. On Friday evening (6pm CET) we will be closing down the current Closed Beta and moving our focus to polishing the backend. So for a while there will be no closed beta available to play. We expect to re-open the beta early next year.

A special thanks to all of our beta testers for your feedback on balance, polish and bug reports over the last few months. Your help has been invaluable to us.

The post has garnered over 800+ comments at the time of my writing this, with a majority of the feedback running towards the ‘Awww man…what’s up?  The game is great!” variety.  Naturally, there’s a smartass comment here and there, but meh…such is life.

This announcement is a bit of a double-edged sword for me personally.  Battlefield Heroes was the only title that I returned to play again on the second day at the Leipzig Games Convention, and I truly do enjoy the gameplay.  Tossing in the ‘it’s free’ factor only ups the ante.  On one hand I was planning on wasting a LOT of time over the upcoming holiday season with BH, but on the other…I’m a patient guy, I’d rather see DICE/EA close the doors, if only temporarily, to deliver something that’s truly going to blow the doors off the nay Sayers.

Here’s to you folks at Dice and EA.  A bold move that’s certainly not going to please all, but kudos to you for having the guts to hold fire until the product is just right.

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Battlefield Heroes ‘Already Out’

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

We got our first look at EA’s free-to-play ‘Battlefield Heroes’ last week at the Games Convention in Leipzig.  While I’ll admit, I didn’t spend as much time with the game as I’d like, I did return the next day to sit down with BH again the next day – a clear signal that EA is doing something right, as I was/am already addicted to this seemingly simple game.

There’s been a whole lot of noise over the past few days regarding BH, with everyone from gamespy to arstechnica to wired has written about the ‘already out’ Battlefield Heroes.  While this comes to a surprise to some, if you think about it, it really shouldn’t.  Since Battlefield Heroes is a free to play title, what exactly is EA selling?  In essence, for now at least, EA is selling only advertising space.  So in theory, they could release the product at any point in time with as little or as great fanfare as they so choose.  Producer Ben Cousins says that the game is essential “already out”, but has been a steady ramp up and release in bits and pieces.  The ‘official’ pomp and circumstance release is slated for the end of 2008 when all the facebook style social networking features will be implemented.

What does this mean for EA’s first foray into the free to play space?  By slowly releasing bits and pieces and letting more and more players in without calling the product ‘officially’ released, EA is playing it safe.  Not a bad move when you’re testing the waters of an unknown/unaccepted business model.  Let’s think of the BH ‘beta’ along the lines of Gmail and Flickr.  Google’s Gmail is still technically in beta, but grew virally by allowing one user to invite a number of other users.  Battlefield Heroes is following more or less the same path as Gmail (sans the ‘a friend can invite you in’ factor), Facebook, and Wikipedia.  That is to say – viral marketing.

While more and more reviews and thoughts and opinions are released surrounding Battlefield Heroes, there are a few key phrases that stick out: Fun, Addictive, Back for more.  In the untested Western waters of free-to-play, microtransaction, and in-game advertising world, this is music to our ears.

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