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Electronic Arts has made it very clear that they're not taking the success of Call of Duty lying down; the publisher is intent on grabbing share in the shooter market, and EA boss John Riccitiello has already pointed out that it starts with Battlefield 3. The DICE developed title was unveiled at a world premiere during GDC, and IndustryGamers came away thoroughly impressed by the real-time gameplay demo shown on screen.
We chatted with EA Games label head Frank Gibeau about his company's plan to dethrone Call of Duty. Gibeau is quite bullish on Battlefield 3, largely because of the hugely impressive tech behind it: the Frostbite 2 engine.
“We're super proud of the game. The Frostbite 2 technology is reinventing the category, and the Battlefield brand has its own persona and positioning, the multiplayer and squads … The combination of the brand and the technology and the quality of the DICE game is what we wanted to show tonight. We wanted to show unadulterated gameplay and show it for a long time, in February, and because we don't ship until the Fall it means we have a long time to polish it and make it extremely high quality," Gibeau commented to IndustryGamers. "It's what we've been trying to do in the EA Games label over the last couple years – get our mojo back in terms of quality and great IPs. For me, this is a great example of investments we've been making in technology, team culture and getting the talent in place to make world beating games."
He added, "We're going to own what we do because we're going to leapfrog the category by introducing a whole new set of technology that's brand-new. The Frostbite 2 technology is going to help us do things in games and shooters that haven't been done before and will be tough for [the competition] to match."
Some might say that EA already tried to take the shooter category back with the reinvented Medal of Honor. Gibeau is still a big believer in MoH, even though his focus now is squarely on the jaw-dropping Battlefield 3. "A long time ago, Medal of Honor was the dominant brand and created the shooter category, frankly, for consoles. I think it's our turn to start to get that back. It's going to take time and versions, and they [Activision] are on their, what, 9th version of Call of Duty? I'm a believer in under-promise, over-deliver, and we're going to compete, we're going to be there," he said.
“We're really proud of what we did with Medal of Honor. It was commercially extremely successful. We know we can do better with the quality of the game, but we're very proud of what we did. Medal of Honor is a great brand, it's nice to have it back, and now we can take it to new places. Medal of Honor is not going away and will be part of our shooter strategy going forward."
Ultimately, Gibeau thinks the hype from the EA-Activision shooter rivalry will be good for business.
“We're here to compete. Everyone loves a heavyweight battle. It's good for the industry, it's good for the customer – there's a lot of energy and hype and fun and comparisons. … It's always good to see how you can energize a market by looking at how one guy can up the other. That's kind of what we're doing here," he said.
