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10 Oct 11

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The profitability of Battlefield 3
Posted 10th October, 2011 at 9:10 PM by Snapsniper

Battlefield 3. What a big name for a big game. After almost a decade, EA DICE finally unleashed Battlefield 3 to generate profits. Here is an analysis on the methods on how they cash in on the Battlefield 3.

High System Requirements and Licensing:

With a push for such high specs, there are definitely some marketing tactics going here in Battlefield 3 with Nvdia going on here. Simply compare Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3’s recommended requirements.

Recommended System Requirements for Crysis 2

OS – Windows XP / Vista
Processor – Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.2GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
Memory – 2.0 GB RAM
GPU – NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS/640 or simila

Compare this to:

Recommended system requirements for Battlefield 3

OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD CPU
RAM: 4GB
Graphics card: DirectX 11 Nvidia or AMD ATI card, Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 or ATI Radeon 6950.
Graphics card memory: 1 GB
Sound card: DirectX compatibl sound card
Hard drive: 15 GB for disc version or 10 GB for digital version

Recommending such high specs really was beneficial to Nvidia, who kindly provides us a benchmark tool on their site to inform you that your graphics card is not powerful enough to run Battlefield 3 and you need to get a new one. Sure enough, gamers from around the world prepped their PC just to prepare for Battlefield 3. What they forgot to mention that you can settle to run your game in medium settings, as most PC games are scalable to run on more PCs. To add in, even consoles can run BF3 at a lower setting. Therefore, I felt there was no need to recommned a gamer to run it on high settings. I’ve know many of my friends went for a new graphics card just to prepare to run this game smoothly. I myself personally felt like upgrading my card, with only my purse strings holding me back. With BF3 plastered all over their site, I am pretty sure DICE gets a fee for using its license.

Medal of Honor Limited Edition Sales

Remember Medal of Honor? EA DICE’s quest for our monnies started in there. A 2 day early access to BF3’s open BETA was offered for purchase of the Limited Edition. However, when the day for the BF3 early access, EA DICE promptly forgot to add a few regions which had this early access offer, causing quite a stir. The best part was in the end, the BF3 beta was an open beta, making it less exclusive for those who purchased the Metal of Honor Limited Edition, This is blatently using the Battlefield Franchise as a marketing tool.

Introduction of Origin Digital Game Service

Using the same formulae for Steam, which is riding on the success of a highly successful game to launch a Digital Sales Platform for games, EA released Origin along with Battlefield 3. I believe the launch of the BF3 beta scored a huge number of new sign ups for Origin. This is a sign to come that we are able to contribute to EA’s economy in the future to buy games off Origin. I daresay this would be better as they are able to give us direct discounts for their games and better support. I was really surprised that EA Origin now supports a live chat service, and my wait time was only 1 minute!

BattleLog

In every webpage or social networks, there are room for advertisements. EA has successfully created a new space for themselves by introducing the Battlelog. Heck, Battlelog itself is already one big battlefield advertisement by itself already. Counting the fact that you’ll need to visit there to access Battlefield 3 servers instead of a in game client, Battlelog’s hits as a webpage will definitely soar.

In game advertisements

Operation Metro, set in a subway station Paris is really a beautiful infantry map. However, I cannot help but notice that at prominent areas of the maps (e.g. near spawn points or 1 way tunnels) where huge billboards appearing showing fake ads. They billboards even rotate and cycle to display different stuff. It then dawned on me. EA DICE is most probably going to repeat their business strategy to host in game ads in the maps. I applaud them for executing these ads tastefully as I feel that in game ads, if done right, like in this case, could actually enhance immersion in the game. Rather then seeing fake advertisements. or blank walls, Seeing real life objects from your everyday life in realistically positioned advertisements will blur the line between virtual and reality and add a sense of realism and familiarity in the game. Hopefully, this will also give a viable financial incentive for server owners to host more BF3 servers for the players to enjoy. Also, this is an excellent strategy for the game to pay for itself, rather then players paying a monthly subscription fee to play an online game.

Conclusion

Bluntly speaking, there is really nothing wrong with getting higher profits out of gamers, as long as they produce content to satisfy us gamers with quality content which actually make sense and give us benefits. Just take my $64 EA. You deserved it!