Battlefield Heroes is one of the more intriguing titles that EA has had on its docket in the past couple years. The company was dipping its toe into the realm of free-to-play PC titles with one of its bigger franchises and that fact alone caused many to stand up and take notice. A couple of years of development time, and the game has finally had its coming out party. Not only that, but EA has already announced that more than a million players have signed up. We talked with Battlefield Heroes executive producer Ben Cousins about getting his game to this point and EA's other Play 4 Free initiatives.
IndustryGamers: How has the extra time helped you develop the Battlefield Heroes concept?
Ben Cousins: We originally planned on launching the game in Summer of '08, but we pushed it back to improve the web experience. We were working on an established engine with a veteran crew, so it wasn't hard to make. We spent a lot of time working on the web half of it. Now you can buy our virtual currency on the website, create characters online and form a leader board with your friends.
IG: How has Battlefield Heroes evolved over time?
BC: Well, we've executed our initial ideas really well. The original plan was to have a free Battlefield game in a quasi World War II environment. Originally, it was an experimental budget but EA's interest in the project has increased over time. This project has become extremely important for EA. The [extra] time has also allowed us to add more game content.
IG: Do you expect larger investments and more franchises using the Play 4 Free model going forward?
BC: We already run a free-to-play game called Battleforge. So that's two games. We've been working on Tiger Woods and Need for Speed in this business model to see how it works out. We're already seeing results, but there's a lot of publishers in this field.
Companies like Aeria Games are turning free-to-play into a multimillion dollar concept. I think there's a lot of people paying attention to Free Realms. EA is already ahead of our major publishing rivals in this field, though. In these past two years, we've seen the question mark removed from the free-to-play model.
IG: Will Battlefield Heroes and other Play 4 Free titles target outside of the U.S. in Eastern Europe and other regions where PCs are more common than consoles?
BC: We already have extensive data on it, and the U.S. is our biggest launch sector, but we see the reach in the Philippines, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Hungary, etc. These are places where there's no real distribution channel, only piracy. The option is that this gives them a game for free and it helps reform them out of piracy. I sort of see these free-to-play titles as TV compared to packaged goods which are like cinema.
IG: Tell me about Battleforge and how that project came about.
BC: It's a free RTS but the twist is that instead of resources, you have a set of cards, and you play those cards in order to get units, allowing you to spawn units on the fly. A lot of the cards are for free, but the higher level cards can only be gotten through expansion packs. We've had an impressive number of micro-transactions on that so far.
IG: Why was going to Play 4 Free a natural progression for the Need for Speed franchise?
BC: Generally, it gives consumers access who don't have any ability otherwise to play the IP. Maybe people don't have time or money to invest in the game, or maybe they don't have access to it because of geography. We don't want to transfer the packaged goods franchise onto online, that doesn't make sense. You need to have payment systems that are relevant to that area. You need to make sure that people can pay for it as well, because people don't use credit cards and PayPal in certain regions of the world.
IG: Any final comments about Battlefield Heroes and EA's Play 4 Free model?
BC: I'm proud of where we are today. We've launched a free-to-play shooter and RTS and it's great to be first. We think those are great initial steps in this business model.
IG: Thanks Ben.
