Battlefield 2 Special Forces an Online Success

[fitbabits]

I'll let the Dice press release (http://global.dice.se/press/pressreleases/?article=f0e81a34-bd1a-45e7-837a-2b5f22f50eda) do the talking here:

Battlefield 2 Special Forces an online success
Digital Illusions CE AB (publ) 2005-12-22

Digital Illusions’ expansion pack Battlefield 2 Special Forces was launched in the end of November 2005. This was the first product Electronic Arts sold directly to consumers over the internet.

The test was so successful that the PC game – another expansion pack to Battlefield 2 – planned for launch during spring 2006 now will be changed to booster packs to be sold online.

Every tenth copy of the expansion pack Battlefield 2 Special Forces was over the Internet, and the rest of the copies were sold to retailers. When games are sold online directly to consumers Digital Illusions earns more money per product than if they are sold through retailers.

- We see online sales as a very interesting channel in the future. Digital Illusions work together with EA to find the best solutions that favours both the consumers and retailers, said Patrick Söderlund, CEO of Digital Illusions.

The Battlefield 2 expansion pack planned to be launched during spring 2006 is now replaced by two booster packs. The change means slightly lower project revenues during the fourth quarter 2005 than during the third, due to a lower development budget. The anticipation though is that this will be compensated by higher royalty revenues during the first six month 2006.

The expansion packs in the Battlefield series have new maps, vehicles and weapons. Each Battlefield booster pack will have new but fewer maps, vehicles and weapons. Instead they are sold to a lower price: 9.99 USD. An expansion pack is usually sold at between 19.90 USD and 29.90 USD. Today at least two Battlefield 2 booster packs are planned for spring 2006.
Booster packs! That should be an interesting addition to the Electronic Arts value chain.

[Evil_SPanKY]

I still like wobolation.

[defiant]

aaah...it wouldnt be EA unless they milked the cash cow. I wonder how long it will be till they starting charging us to patch bugs

[Skookum]

I bought it retail cuz it was cheaper than online.
Anyone else get the feeling that these "Booster Packs" wouldn't go over well with retailers? Low budget items taking up shelve space.

[Royal Fool]

Vaaaaaaaaaaaluuuuuueeeeee chaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnn!

[ÜberJumper]

I love Battlefield2, I hope they can find a way to integrate the new vehicles and weapons into existing maps.

The SF Weapon Unlocks are tier 2 unlocks for all the regular battlefield 2 maps, and they definately provide some spice.

It'd be nice if some of the BF2 SF items (gas, ziplines and grappling hooks) could be brought over to regular BF2 as well.

[Kyle Jones]

Sort of sounds like Warcraft 3, you know how they release new maps every few months...


Oh wait, they do that for free!

[Vulture]

considering all the money EA makes from Ranked Servers, you would think that would keep giving out content to keep those servers in demand.

[Steve_Erhardt]

I'm of a mind to say "fuck this shit".

I like the idea of $10 pack, but I'm thinking they'll cut the content down so bad it won't be worth it.

[greensky]

I wouldn't care too much, but they still haven't addressed any of the bugs they had since day one. Argh... Screw you EA.

[KJAX]

I like to call this "The Steam Effect."

Bottom line:
By cutting out the retailers, the company in taking in more profit.

The future of retail is online and Steam will continue to encourage other publishers to adopt a similar model.

[mister_slim]

I bought it retail cuz it was cheaper than online.
Anyone else get the feeling that these "Booster Packs" wouldn't go over well with retailers? Low budget items taking up shelve space.
Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6141592.html) has an interview with one of the EA Downloader execs which talks about that. Apparently Wal-Mart has made it very clear that they don't like the trend. I doubt they like the tone of this press release, though they're probably comforted by only 10% being sold online.

[feeble]

they are putting less and less work into game boxes now.

i like to by a nice game box, but with alot of games now, its not even worth it and i like to have the option of getting downloading the game.

[Snowmit]

I think this is a good thing. There are a lot of games that I would pay $10 for a few new levels and other goodies like that. Especially single player games.

[Achilles]

I wonder if releasing these expansions will fracture the player base. Since it’s an online only game (pretty much), will you only be able to play in games with people who have bought the same set of expansion packs? If it’s only maps than obviously not, but if it’s new weapons, vehicles, that would seem to restrict which servers people can play on.

[Vulture]

I wonder if releasing these expansions will fracture the player base. Since it’s an online only game (pretty much), will you only be able to play in games with people who have bought the same set of expansion packs? If it’s only maps than obviously not, but if it’s new weapons, vehicles, that would seem to restrict which servers people can play on.

Haver you looked at the servers, the base BF2 is still the main game. SF was bought so us elitists could have new weapons apparrantly. The SF exp pack servers are mostly empty.

[Echani]

I haven't bought SF, nor will I. I'm also of a mind to say 'fuck this shit', since I could use one less online game to free up some time.

[Skookum]

Haver you looked at the servers, the base BF2 is still the main game. SF was bought so us elitists could have new weapons apparrantly. The SF exp pack servers are mostly empty.
Yeah, that was a bit of a shock. You get a whole bunch of rank upgrades (and therefore weapon upgrades) for buying the damn expansion pack. Suddenly things that everyone else had to work really hard for by winning matches and racking up points, are easily obtained for 30$.
Sort of defeats the purpose, cuz now everyone with 30$ has access to almost all the weapons in the game.
Now if only they'd do something like that for the choppers o_0

[mpsmith]

We didnt get higher rank for getting the expansion- just unlocks. The rank jump was because of the patch a while back (I went from E5 to E8 in one round).

[ÜberJumper]

I got 3 or 4 unlocks just by installing BF2:SF and playing a game.

[Skookum]

We didnt get higher rank for getting the expansion- just unlocks. The rank jump was because of the patch a while back (I went from E5 to E8 in one round).

:eek: Waitaminute, so everyone went up a few ranks after applying the 1.12 patch? So the 7 weapon upgrades I got weren't just for buying the expansion pack, they were the result of the points sytem being changed?

[ÜberJumper]

Skookum:

There was a big change to how rank was calculated back around 1.2. I think I got 3 unlocks at that time.

With the SF Expansion, once it's installed and played, it unlocks more weapons, but it's based on your user account. So apparently if you have someone sign into your BF2 account and play an SF map, they can then get you some unlocks for your account.

[Demize99]

considering all the money EA makes from Ranked Servers, you would think that would keep giving out content to keep those servers in demand.

They don't make any money from ranked servers right now. There is no fee to be a trusted partner. EA execs hate this fact. It will probably change.

Additionally, I've played the first patch, and 1.3 patch at work. There's a damn lot of content in them as they exist now. 1 pack has as much as BF:SF. Its a rediculously good value. Assuming they don't change.

[mpsmith]

Where do you work?

And the 1.2 patch gave me three promotions (3 unlocks) and then the SF pack gave me three more unlocks. Further, once you own the SF pack every rank you gain gives you two unlocks.

http://bf2s.com/player/mpsmith/ <-- me

[mpsmith]

Oh, I see you work for DICE in Sweden. Any chance of a 1.3 release date? Further, some of the sound files are spelled incorrectly in the main game- the losing music files say "loose" rather than "lose." I think this should be a priority fix for the next patch.

[Hijinx]

BF:SF should have been 19.99.

Thirty bucks for that is just kicking a PC Gamer in D-Nutz.