The gaming industry is at a crossroads in many respects. We’re not just talking about the layoffs that are going on or the terrible business decisions being made by Sony, Xbox, The Embracer Group, and so on. Instead, we’re talking about the overall treatment of video games as a whole and what the higher-ups at certain companies feel is “best for business,” when in reality, it’s just “an attempt to make themselves more money.” The biggest example of this is the divide between those who want meaningful games and those who want live service games everywhere, like with the Battlefield franchise.
Earlier today, EA CEO Andrew Wilson announced that the next Battlefield title was indeed underway and had a large dev team attached to it. That in and of itself isn’t a bad thing; however, when he dove deeper, he noted that it would be a “tremendous live service.”
That immediately sent red flags to gamers, especially those on Twitter, who were incredibly vocal in tweets voicing the news, including one that was posted by Geoff Keighley.
In that thread alone, gamers talked about how they “already know they won’t play this game” now that it’s going to focus on live service. Others called out Wilson specifically, stating that he went straight for how it’ll be a good live service instead of saying, “It’s a great game.” Wordplay is key here.
A sect of other gamers point out that Andrew Wilson has said this kind of thing about previous entries in the franchise and it backfired every single time.
One particular gamer arguably summed it up best by stating, we are exhausted with live services, we miss actual games.”
That is indeed the feeling across the gaming side of the industry. Just when you think that narrative-driven and single-player focused titles have proven their worth and made enough sales, the higher-ups say, “nope,” and continue to try and make games of the live service variety so they can try to milk gamers out of more money.
The problem is that it usually doesn’t work, especially if the core game lacks meaningful gameplay. A great example of this is not with EA, but Warner Bros Discovery, who released the live service title Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League this year, and it was pretty much DOA despite YEARS of development and having one of the best gaming studios behind it. It didn’t meet expectations, and no one really cares what happens next with it.
And that might be the fate of EA’s next Battlefield entry.
