EA on Battlefield 2042 Fiasco and Its Reasons; Tom Henderson Reports
Battlefield 2042 disappointed not only players, but also Electronic Arts. Details of the meeting, during which the company discussed the reasons for the failure of DICE's new game, were revealed by Tom Henderson.
- Insider Tom Henderson revealed details of a recent quarterly meeting at Electronic Arts, during which the company's disappointment with the release of Battlefield 2042 was discussed.
- Laura Miele, EA's head of studios, was said to have mentioned the reasons for the failure: the long upgrade process of the Frostbite engine, forced remote work, and insufficient research during beta testing to establish "changed" player expectations for live-service games;
- Another reason was said to have been the debut of the highly polished Halo Infinite at a similar time.
Battlefield 2042 is a disappointment not only to gamers, but also to Electronic Arts. That's according to reports of a meeting inside the company from noted informant Tom Henderson in an article published on Xfire.
The most popular and anticipated titles happen to betray expectations, often badly, and Battlefield 2042 is not the worst example of a well-konwn series that didn't deliver among games of 2021. Nevertheless, the game's shortcomings and problems clearly bother the fans. Delayed development and most of all debatable announcements from the creators after launch only added fuel to the fire.
Battlefield 2042 - why did it fail?
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Apparently this dissatisfaction has passed from fans to high ranking EA employees. Tom Henderson reports that much of the "Town Hall" meeting (which is a quarterly summary of the company's activities and plans) was about the failure of BF2042.
- Laura Miele - head of Electronic Arts studios - was to have said that it is important for EA to admit not only successes, but also failures. One of those, in her opinion, is undoubtedly the launch of the new Battlefield: a disappointment for gamers and the publisher itself.
- Miele also cited several factors that determined the game's failure. These include problems with the Frostbite technology, which had been upgraded to such an extent that it effectively became a "completely new engine". In addition, this "update" took developers a long time (18 months), which did not remain without effect on the project.
- Remote work forced by the pandemic in mid-development also had to do its part, causing EA to "end up with far more variables than ever before."
- All this meant that the number of bugs detected during beta testing was a record for a game from DICE.
Halo Infinite messed up DICE's plans
Despite this, EA felt that after the first two updates (i.e. patches 0 and 1) Battlefield 2042 was "stable," as confirmed by largely positive reviews. However, according to Laura Miele , the company's plans were foiled by... the surprise release of multiplayer mode of Halo Infinite.
- According to Henderson, the head of Electronic Arts studios was to say that even "patched" Battlefield 2042 looked worse than the relatively polished Halo Infinite.
- Miele also pointed to complaints from PC gamers regarding the imposed performance limits, as well as the three main issues raised in negative reviews from internet users: bugs, design, and not being in line with fans' wishes.
- In addition, according to Miele, gamer expectations of live-service games have changed and Electronic Arts made a "big mistake" by not taking care to gather customer feedback from "different segments."
Battlefield 2042 still under repair
Fortunately, it doesn't look like EA is going to abandon the game after such a poor launch (which wouldn't be a first for the company).
- During the meeting the execs also touched on the issue of planned changes in Battlefield 2042, which, by the way were already mentioned in public announcements (including the addition of leaderboards, voice chat, and modifications to the specialist system).
- What's more, Electronic Arts is preparing a restructuring of the teams responsible for the series to ensure its "more efficient development."
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Author: Jacob Blazewicz
Graduated with a master's degree in Polish Studies from the University of Warsaw with a thesis dedicated to this very subject. Started his adventure with gamepressure.com in 2015, writing in the Newsroom and later also in the film and technology sections (also contributed to the Encyclopedia). Interested in video games (and not only video games) for years. He began with platform games and, to this day, remains a big fan of them (including Metroidvania). Also shows interest in card games (including paper), fighting games, soulslikes, and basically everything about games as such. Marvels at pixelated characters from games dating back to the time of the Game Boy (if not older).
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