EA CFO Blake Jorgensen claims EA hasn’t “seen any damage” due to Battlefield 4’s problematic launch, and mentions the franchise will be critical to EA’s fiscal year 2015.
Early this year, EA execs spoke out regarding Battlefield 4’s post-launch issues and were “convinced” the game was “ready” for consumers. Not only that, but just this month, EA CCO Rich Hilleman states that he thinks the shooter’s launch wasn’t that bad — a notion that some FPS fans might take umbrage with given the game’s host of bugs and server issues that some are even present to this day. Regardless of what consumers think, it seems the problematic launch for EA’s premiere shooter franchise hasn’t damaged the brand at all, according to EA. Speaking during the Morgan Stanley Technology Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen claims BF4’s patchy launch did not “damage” the Battlefield franchise overall. “We haven’t seen any damage,” claims Jorgensen and adds, “Clearly we’re very focused on protecting that brand…The game has sold well and continues to sell well.”
Jorgensen also mentions that players have been “very responsive” to some of the title updates developer DICE has released for the shooter so far, and mentions “extra content” they’ve provided to fans — such as last month’s “Player Appreciation Month” — is “working very well.”
“We’ve also tried to provide extra content to the consumers to make sure they keep coming back and playing the game and we’re finding that it’s working very well…I don’t see that there’s a damage issue. I think for us it’s making sure that we’re providing great gameplay for the consumer and we’ll continue to do that,” Jorgensen states.
Lastly, the exec comments that Battlefield will be “critical” to EA’s fiscal year 2015, which begins next month. However, it’s important to note that a Battlefield game for 2014 has not been announced, but there are rumors floating about that a “police-themed” entry in the shooter series is being developed by Visceral Games (Dead Space franchise), instead of DICE, and is set to be released later this year.
With tons of people still playing BF4 even with its problematic launch — at least from what I’ve seen on the PS4 version’s server browser — is Jorgensen correct? Did the franchise not take any “damage” even with its laundry list of post-launch issues that has taken months to fix? Most important of all, are shooter fans willing to drop money on a Battlefield game on day one even with what they’ve experienced with Battlefield 4?
Source: GameSpot
