Star Wars Battlefront II (Nov 17)

RandV

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It's literally a situation where they realized they could just make it lazily and just slap a #2 on the front and put it out and it'll sell because it has Star Wars tied to it. Might as well been a Tiger handheld game considering the effort...

This is something that should be kept in mind for people who excuse or justify all the extra crap added on by saying its so expensive to make "AAA games" so they need to do it.

While the games are still going to be expensive for a lot of the big publishers, EA most notably with Ubisoft/Activision the runner up, a big chunk of these games are going to be recycled assets from the previous iteration. Especially on series that have annual or bi-annual releases. In the other loot box thread someone posted a good video about the origion of the trend from EA, and had a chart where development costs at EA are actually down significantly (like maybe $200M annually?) over the last few years.

And there's nothing wrong with that really, I just think a lot of people are taking in with marketing gimmicks - which I consider the whole "AAA" title to be. If you take a brand new IP with new gameplay, mechanics, models, marketing, etc etc, like say Overwatch, then yeah they're probably incurring significant development costs. But otherwise, and in most cases for that matter, publishers can take signficant shortcuts when developing new games.
 
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SolidSnakeUS

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You also have to realize how much games actually cost to make vs the marketing budget. Something like MW2, where the game itself cost 50M to make, but the marketing budget was 200M. That is 4 times as much as the game itself. With Battlefront II, you'd have to think that it is riddled not only with reused assets from just 2 years prior, but also a larger marketing budget. I'm betting that BF2 is somewhat like COD MW2, where it didn't cost a whole lot to make, but spent a shit load on marketing, but even more so. I'm betting 50M is about right with, possibly, $250M+ in marketing. Basically, games like BF2 are only expensive to make because of how much marketing they actually put into the game, not the effort or the time or care to the game.
 

Commander Clueless

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You also have to realize how much games actually cost to make vs the marketing budget. Something like MW2, where the game itself cost 50M to make, but the marketing budget was 200M. That is 4 times as much as the game itself. With Battlefront II, you'd have to think that it is riddled not only with reused assets from just 2 years prior, but also a larger marketing budget. I'm betting that BF2 is somewhat like COD MW2, where it didn't cost a whole lot to make, but spent a **** load on marketing, but even more so. I'm betting 50M is about right with, possibly, $250M+ in marketing. Basically, games like BF2 are only expensive to make because of how much marketing they actually put into the game, not the effort or the time or care to the game.

Very true, which really hurts the whole "games are too expensive" thing.

If you want to argue you need more money in order to deliver quality, that's one thing. If you need more money because you spent too much on marketing for a crap game, that's in no way our problem or an investment on the part of the consumer.
 

x Tame Impala

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In the other loot box thread someone posted a good video about the origion of the trend from EA, and had a chart where development costs at EA are actually down significantly (like maybe $200M annually?) over the last few years.

Came here to add this. Yeah that video was really good. Dev costs have been going down the last few years. Which is of course infuriating for EA NHL fans, but EA makes so much $$$ from Ultimate Team and it requires next to nothing in terms of development costs it's almost hard to blame them for doing what they do.
 

Dolemite

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Came here to add this. Yeah that video was really good. Dev costs have been going down the last few years. Which is of course infuriating for EA NHL fans, but EA makes so much $$$ from Ultimate Team and it requires next to nothing in terms of development costs it's almost hard to blame them for doing what they do.

The servers you play on don’t pay for themselves. They gotta pay for them somehow.
 

XX

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The servers you play on don’t pay for themselves. They gotta pay for them somehow.

Those servers are a minor line item on the monthly budget. Doesn't cost shit relative to the revenue the game itself brings in. You can't be serious with this.

Game apparently sold 20% of what COD:WW2 did. Lol.
 

Dolemite

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I’m really cracking up over everyone whining about having to pay to play or DLC. If you don’t like it, don’t play it and quit whining about it.

What really gets me is how no one is complaining about the pile of crap this game is. Horrible game play, the lack of ignoring players who want to just shoot and have fun and instead don’t know how to complete objective based maps or know the first thing about setting up a good defense on maps.

Those servers are a minor line item on the monthly budget. Doesn't cost **** relative to the revenue the game itself brings in. You can't be serious with this.

Game apparently sold 20% of what COD:WW2 did. Lol.

Yeah...um no. Nice try.
 

SolidSnakeUS

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Servers are literally pennies to these companies. It all just comes down to the amount of effort to even try. Like with Destiny 2 on PC, there are no dedicated servers with PvP, yet there is for everything else. That is just insulting, but from what I can tell of that, almost no one likes the PVP in that game, so it's whatever at this point. I find that if a company doesn't even offer dedicated servers for any form of PvP, then it's not worth getting or playing (if they are mainly PvP focused games).

Anyways, it still comes down to the fact, that since there is no actual DLC for BF2 and they they leaned so hard on MTX for this game, it was implied that when you bought this game, you bought into the MTX scheme they were pushing. Lets say with Destiny 2, that if people bought the main game but not a whole lot of people bought the DLCs, then they may change how they do their DLC, what is offered, what should be fixed and so on. To EA, if you buy BF2, they automatically add you to the pile of "accepting this form of MTX."

Anyways, there has been at least a page or two before your couple of posts showing how people hate the game. The joke of the SP, the awfully designed maps and the shortsighted modes that go with each of them. Even Blueton, who was behind this game basically 100% of the way when the game first came out on EA Early Access, was even complaining about how awful the maps were and how most of them aren't even fun anymore.
 

Chaels Arms

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Heroes v. Villains is actually pretty funny at this point. Can't get into a game without having one or two rubber banders going around in circles. It's amazing EA hasn't addressed this yet.
 

Dolemite

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Servers are literally pennies to these companies.

Yeah, um no. There are servers, networking equipment to handle large amounts of players at the same time. The factor in geo location and data center costs. In addition you need to factor in 24/7 Support in all the different data centers along with server building, network maintence. THEN factor in security.


Finally multiply that times all their games.

Tens of millions of dollars easy.
 

XX

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Yeah, um no. There are servers, networking equipment to handle large amounts of players at the same time. The factor in geo location and data center costs. In addition you need to factor in 24/7 Support in all the different data centers along with server building, network maintence. THEN factor in security.


Finally multiply that times all their games.

Tens of millions of dollars easy.

"Tens of millions" is a super small amount to a company that does billions in revenue every year. Finance is not your strong suit.
 

Bjorn Le

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"Tens of millions" is a super small amount to a company that does billions in revenue every year. Finance is not your strong suit.

The costs are "small" when considering total revenue for the company but that's not how it's considered in this context. Server costs for a major AAA multiplayer game would be considered as part of the costs for the game (especially because games don't collectively use some "server bank" but rather something set up specifically for that game and it's purposes), and would directly impact the determination of whether the game made a profit or not. Which for Battlefront is important for not only EA but also Disney.

Severs are the biggest reason (if not the only reason) why Sony had to abandon their last-gen policy of online services being free.
 

RandV

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Yeah, um no. There are servers, networking equipment to handle large amounts of players at the same time. The factor in geo location and data center costs. In addition you need to factor in 24/7 Support in all the different data centers along with server building, network maintence. THEN factor in security.


Finally multiply that times all their games.

Tens of millions of dollars easy.

Game companies have been finding ways to provide online servers for over two decades now. There are multiple ways to pay for it without pulling all the crap EA has done here. For PC games there's also the option to offload the cost by providing the option for private servers, which used to be common but none of the big publishers do that anymore.

While some people will always complain about DLC, that in itself is not the issue here with BF2. It's about EA over reaching and trying to implement their FIFA card business model in every game, with an increasing focus on 'pay to win', while at the same time doing an all around shoddy job on the actual game itself.
 

XX

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The costs are "small" when considering total revenue for the company but that's not how it's considered in this context. Server costs for a major AAA multiplayer game would be considered as part of the costs for the game (especially because games don't collectively use some "server bank" but rather something set up specifically for that game and it's purposes), and would directly impact the determination of whether the game made a profit or not. Which for Battlefront is important for not only EA but also Disney.

Severs are the biggest reason (if not the only reason) why Sony had to abandon their last-gen policy of online services being free.

Sony abandoned online services being free because it's easy revenue and Microsoft had already primed the market to accept such things.

EA likely spent more on marketing in a few days in the run up to launch than they will on the servers for the lifetime of the game. The sever costs are such a minor thing. They in no way justify super aggressive monetization.
 

Commander Clueless

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The servers you play on don’t pay for themselves. They gotta pay for them somehow.

Are you sure? If EA didn't get these servers for free, they overpaid. :laugh:

Laggy garbage.

Severs are the biggest reason (if not the only reason) why Sony had to abandon their last-gen policy of online services being free.

Has PS4 gotten more dedicated servers post-fee implementation? Honest question.

I fondly remember them putting in a paid system and then using that money on peer-to-peer multiplayer for Uncharted 4 and Killzone.

If servers are what people (including myself in the past) are paying the PS Plus fees for, I'd kind of hope for better service.
 
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Commander Clueless

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I’m really cracking up over everyone whining about having to pay to play or DLC. If you don’t like it, don’t play it and quit whining about it.

And I, on the other hand, really crack up when people say "stop whining about it".


Consumer feedback is how shit gets changed.
 

Blitzkrug

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The life of this game is probably decided with the DLC coming this week.

This game still needs overhauling in a lot of ways, and admittedly they couldn't really fix a lot of it overnight. They've had just under a month to take in feedback and implement it in some way to the game. No excuses now.

Honestly all you'd have to do to appease a lot of people is drop the price of the loot boxes. at 1500-2000 a pop it's suddenly not as bad.
 

Saitama

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I've unlocked all the heroes and I make more than the highest loot box worth of credits a day. Not sure why we need a loot box price drop. I actually think that they went overboard with the dropped prices on both heroes and loot boxes. There are lots of minor things for us to unlock, but we've already both unlocked all the major stuff. The wife and I love the game, it's very well done.
 

SeidoN

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Trooper box reduction would be nice. right now id rather buy Fighter or Hero Crates at almost 2x the rate and just use the crafting parts in them on trooper cards
 

Commander Clueless

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I've unlocked all the heroes and I make more than the highest loot box worth of credits a day. Not sure why we need a loot box price drop. I actually think that they went overboard with the dropped prices on both heroes and loot boxes. There are lots of minor things for us to unlock, but we've already both unlocked all the major stuff. The wife and I love the game, it's very well done.

I think the core issue is how much difference the star cards make. They are massive advantages.

The longer you need to grind to unlock them, the longer you are at that disadvantage. Very unappealing to newcomers, who not only have to deal with the skill gap but also the gear gap.
 
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Bjorn Le

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Sony abandoned online services being free because it's easy revenue and Microsoft had already primed the market to accept such things.

EA likely spent more on marketing in a few days in the run up to launch than they will on the servers for the lifetime of the game. The sever costs are such a minor thing. They in no way justify super aggressive monetization.

Sony had previously used their lack of subscription fees as a selling point, and already had experience offering a premium subscription (original PS+) while online services remained free. Draw rate on PS+ was pretty good even before it became mandatory for multiplayer. I strongly believe the driving factor was to make the PS4 a more profitable venture for Sony and eliminate the expenses incurred by hosting a significant online infrastructure with little in the way of expense recapture.

EA definitely spent more on marketing in the first few days, but the costs aren't comparable because marketing has become the majority of a major AAA games expenses. It dwarfs even development costs in most cases. Marketing notwithstanding, online infrastructure is a significant expense for any multiplayer-heavy game. It's also something a company wants to get right at any cost, because a bad online release can plague a games reputation extensively. I don't think it justifies monetization, but you can't trivialize it either.

Has PS4 gotten more dedicated servers post-fee implementation? Honest question.

I fondly remember them putting in a paid system and then using that money on peer-to-peer multiplayer for Uncharted 4 and Killzone.

If servers are what people (including myself in the past) are paying the PS Plus fees for, I'd kind of hope for better service.

No idea, but probably. It was always the insult that Sony had much poorer online services compared to Microsoft, and while a lot of hyperbole went into that it was true to some extent, especially in the early days of the PS3. I've heard a lot less about this since PS+ came about, and virtually nothing since it became mandatory for online services. While I definitely don't pay as much attention as I used to, they likely reinvested a significant amount in better infrastructure. Though I'm not sure it was because of PS+, or because of their significant security breaches/infrastructure failures they experienced.
 

Commander Clueless

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EA definitely spent more on marketing in the first few days, but the costs aren't comparable because marketing has become the majority of a major AAA games expenses. It dwarfs even development costs in most cases. Marketing notwithstanding, online infrastructure is a significant expense for any multiplayer-heavy game. It's also something a company wants to get right at any cost, because a bad online release can plague a games reputation extensively. I don't think it justifies monetization, but you can't trivialize it either.

I don't trivialize marketing at all. It's a huge component of the AAA industry.

The problem I have with it is how that cost gets transformed into bullcrap mobile monetization mechanics, and then peddled as a "necessary compromise" because "game development is too expensive" when really it's the marketing costs that have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of product we receive.

If they want to sell us content DLC that isn't integral to the game itself, great! If they want to sell us skins and the like, fine I guess! Heck, if they want to sell us lootboxes, I'll raise an eyebrow but until there are any sort of regulations I guess that's their right.

But to actively harm the quality of the game to sell more lootboxes or DLC or whatever is insulting (AKA the ol' mobile garbage tactic), and then to tell us it's to cover their marketing costs is even more insulting.

If their product revenue can't cover the cost of marketing, they are doing marketing wrong IMO.



No idea, but probably. It was always the insult that Sony had much poorer online services compared to Microsoft, and while a lot of hyperbole went into that it was true to some extent, especially in the early days of the PS3. I've heard a lot less about this since PS+ came about, and virtually nothing since it became mandatory for online services. While I definitely don't pay as much attention as I used to, they likely reinvested a significant amount in better infrastructure. Though I'm not sure it was because of PS+, or because of their significant security breaches/infrastructure failures they experienced.

It's very possible I'm missing many examples, but to my consumer eyes the online service from Sony hasn't improved one bit (with the exception of the party system which was more UI design than quality of service), but they still put all multiplayer functionality behind that paywall.

If it was just a stand alone games-as-a-service thing like it used to be, I'd have no problem with it. In fact, I'd absolutely love it.
 

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