The next step for the Battlefield series has been revealed to tone it down and make it free. Battlefield Heroes has been announced by EA and is being developed by DICE, the team behind the 10 million plus selling Battlefield games. Press release and more after the break.

Press release:

BATTLEFIELD HEROES LEADS THE WAY FOR EA’S NEW
‘PLAY 4 FREE’ BUSINESS MODEL

Unique Cartoon Shooter Introduces a New Way to Play Battlefield

Munich, Germany, January 21, 2008 – At the Digital, Life, Design Conference (DLD) in Munich, Electronic Arts Inc., (NASDAQ: ERTS) today unveiled Battlefield Heroes™, an all-new Play 4 Free cartoon-style shooter that will bring classic Battlefield gameplay to an all new mass audience. Available for download at www.battlefield-heroes.com this summer, Battlefield Heroes is EA’s first title that is offered completely for free, and features a built-in matchmaking system to ensure that players of equal skill are paired together for fair play. Developed by DICE in Stockholm, Battlefield Heroes is leading EA’s new web-focused free to download, free to play business model which generates revenue through advertising and micro-transactions. With zero barriers to entry, now anyone can be a hero on the battlefield!

“Online gaming garners a massive audience,” said Gerhard Florin, EVP Publishing Americas-Europe at EA. “People want to play games in new ways, with easier access that is quick to the fun. With Battlefield Heroes, EA brings its first major franchise to North America and Europe with a new distribution model and pricing structure adapted to the evolving way that people play.”

Battlefield Heroes is a brand new game from the team behind Battlefield 1942™ and Battlefield 2™. It’s fun cartoon-style graphics and gameplay caters to players of all skill levels. It is easy to pick up and play but with robust character customization and a deep online meta-game, gamers can spend hours building up their characters and conquering the world.

“We put a different twist on this Battlefield game going with the cartoon-style graphics and gameplay,” added Ben Cousins, Senior Producer at EA DICE. “There’s something here for all types of players — be it our core Battlefield fans or casual gamers. With the new online model, we will continually add new content to keep the game fresh and keep players engaged, while integrating player feedback in real time. As a game developer, it is such a cool new way to make games.”

Battlefield Heroes will be released for the PC as a free download in summer 2008. This product is not yet rated by PEGI or ESRB. For more information on EA DICE, please visit www.dice.se or www.ea.com.

About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world’s leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTS™, EA™, EA SPORTS BIG™ and POGO™. In fiscal 2007, EA posted revenue of $3.09 billion and had 24 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA’s homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA’s products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.

EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS BIG and POGO are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Battlefield Heroes, Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 1942 are trademarks or registered trademarks of EA Digital Illusions CE AB. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Further coverage has been supplied by the New York Times and by the BBC.

So, ignoring the TF2 arguments that have already spread like wildfire around the internet lets get down to my thoughts. This is a good move by EA, people by have issues with the use of adverts and micro-transactions in games, but for me if they mean the game is free then all the better. EA’s promise that it will be playable on ‘grandmas laptop’ (BBC article) is also promising as it indicates that system requirements are going to be low and many PCs will be able to play the game.

That is a very good thing. By removing the traditional barriers of entry to big PC game releases, cost and high system requirements EA are attempting to tap into the ‘casual’ market and make a PC game playable for the masses. The ads are said to only appear on the front end of the game and micro-transactions will, according to the BBC article not be used to buy better weapons, instead they will be used to customize the character. Again this is a good move as it removes the ‘elite’ element that occurs when people can buy their way to success in a game (Hellgate London anyone?)

The game is also being toned down according to EAs VP for US and EU publishing, Gerhard Florin.

“Now we’ve toned down the difficulty, shortened each game session to 10 or 15 minutes and made the visual style more cartoony.”

This is another smart move by EA and DICE, while it may isolate the Battlefield players who played for realism it is going to make Heroes much much more appealing to the casual gamer.

If EA and DICE can make this a good enjoyable game to play and take this distribution method forwards then I will be happy. If this also helps spread PC gaming to the masses again, I will be even happier. Check out the site here and let me know what you think.

Tags: Battlefield, EA, free, Heroes

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 5:50 pm and is filed under General News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.