Yesterday, we reported that the number of online players of Battlefield 2042 on Steam has reached a new low, which is less than 2,000. Shortly after, EA held an internal web conference call to acknowledge the disappointing release of Battlefield 2042 and to summarize the reasons for the failure, with well-known whistleblower Tom Henderson reporting the conference in detail.
During the meeting, EA executives spent more than 20 minutes discussing the launch of Battlefield 2042, as well as the company’s view of Battlefield 2042 and the future of the Battlefield series of games.
EA COO Laura Miele started by affirming EA’s past and present successes but said: It’s also very important to admit our mistakes. He continued: The release of Battlefield was just like that, it failed to satisfy Players’ expectations, and correspondingly it fell short of our own.
Laura Miele then listed several key factors that contributed to the game’s failure:
- One, is the old frost engine. The Frostbite engine version was so old that the developers had to go back and update the engine, which alone took 18 months of development time.
Second, developers work from home. The impact of the global new crown epidemic has caused developers to work from home, which has prevented some very creative and ambitious project plans from being successfully completed, and development has encountered many variables.
Third, the release of Halo: Infinite. Laura Miele first emphasized that the release of Battlefield 2042 and the release of the patch meant that the game is stable” and that the early feedback was very good, but things took a turn, and this turning point was the launch of the multiplayer mode of Halo: Infinite.
(Tom Henderson ranted ‘I hope I was joking’ when reporting this, but that’s exactly what it said.) Laura Miele said that comparing the two games against each other is inappropriate because Halo Infinite is well polished, But Battlefield 2042 has many bugs, and the polishing is not good enough.
Fourth, the upper limit of the computer performance of PC players leads to too many bad reviews on Steam. EA concluded that players’ negative feedback focused on three key areas: game bugs and performance issues, game design and feature selection issues, and games that didn’t meet player expectations.
Finally, talking about the future, Laura Miele explained what EA will do to improve the status quo:
EA admits that there will be bugs in the release of DICE games over the years. The number of bugs in “Battlefield 2042” is still within the expected range. EA believes that these problems are controllable.
Laura Miele said EA is very good at adapting games in online services, connecting with the player community and constantly improving. But he also acknowledged that players’ expectations for games on the online service have changed, and continue to maintain the company’s standard requirements compared to previous DICE games is not the right choice.
- Regarding game design and feature selection, EA officials said that new feature improvements, such as scoreboard additions, will be rolled out in the next few months.
Player feedback is very important and a new initiative related to this will be launched later this month. The development team for Battlefield will also be reorganized, changing the way they work to ensure a more streamlined development process.