Analysts say Battlefield 5 may put EA's financial guidance at risk.

Dreiko_v1legacy

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https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/20/cowen-predicts-eas-battlefield-v-will-be-a-serious-disappointment-citing-weak-pre-orders.html


Apparently the game is trailing CoD4 on preorders by over a whopping 85%. Not looking good at all.


I guess when someone tells people not to buy something, they listen. I'll just get Valkyria Chronicles 4 which is coming a couple weeks ahead and focus on playing that as my war game. At least it's not trying to be realistic while adding all sorts of random wrong things and instead goes for a full on fantasy themed setting.
 

Hawki

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Dreiko said:
At least it's not trying to be realistic while adding all sorts of random wrong things
You mean what Battlefield's been doing since day 1?
 

Mcgeezaks

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It's almost like the developers told their audience that they are uneducated/on the wrong side of history and should not buy it if they didn't like what they saw. Looks like they got exactly what they wanted, congrats EA/DICE!
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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See I would be okay with a cyberpunk girl with a cricket bat fighting Nazi clones with a guy armed with a katana. Just don't claim its historically accurate. Make it an alternate history steam punk World war 2 game
 

WindKnight

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BabyfartsMcgeezaks said:
It's almost like the developers told their audience that they are uneducated/on the wrong side of history and should not buy it if they didn't like what they saw. Looks like they got exactly what they wanted, congrats EA/DICE!
(shrugs) if you think women didn't fight in world war two, then yes you are both. Maybe not the politest way to put it, but its the truth.

I'm laying this more at the leftover stench of Battlefront II debacle. The pay to win loot box BS has hurt confidence and trust, if EA had any in the first place.
 

Ninjamedic

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Windknight said:
if you think women didn't fight in world war two, then yes you are both.
I doubt the all-American Fuck Yeah World War II Beat Them Nazzys fun action game with Cricket Boudica is going to try to accurately portray the Eastern Front.
 

Eacaraxe_v1legacy

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Pre-orders as a marketing strategy need to die anyways. They're another brick in the wall of predatory behavior that feeds triple-A publishers and the nonstop avalanche of underwhelming titles. More gamers need to wake up to this reality and stop buying into the pre-order scam, outside fringe cases of highly-controversial games. It sucks this is what's come of the Battlefield franchise, but oh well.

See I would be okay with a cyberpunk girl with a cricket bat fighting Nazi clones with a guy armed with a katana. Just don't claim its historically accurate. Make it an alternate history steam pink World war 2 game.
Oh yeah, I'd totally play a Battlefield-style steampunk alternate-history WWII game in a heartbeat. As long as it's not an EA product, anyhow.

Just one caveat, it has to have Nazi mecha.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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Windknight said:
BabyfartsMcgeezaks said:
It's almost like the developers told their audience that they are uneducated/on the wrong side of history and should not buy it if they didn't like what they saw. Looks like they got exactly what they wanted, congrats EA/DICE!
(shrugs) if you think women didn't fight in world war two, then yes you are both. Maybe not the politest way to put it, but its the truth.

I'm laying this more at the leftover stench of Battlefront II debacle. The pay to win loot box BS has hurt confidence and trust, if EA had any in the first place.
This is definitely something that is attributable to a bunch of different factors such as their earlier failures with various games. You don't see such a big fallout due to just a single one issue.

Still, you can't speak to people who put bread on your table as though you're superior to them when in fact you're the one tasked with serving them. Even if you think someone is uneducated or whatever, your job as a game maker is to entertain them, not to condescend to them. Your approach should be to politely coax them, not to defiantly belittle them.

I don't know how EA fails to realize this. Maybe they thought that everyone else who agrees with their politics would surge to their defense and support the game even more? If so they failed to realize that gamers just care about games so when a company belittles its customers who are also gamers, that is not taken kindly.

Either way, it certainly didn't help them at all.

Eacaraxe said:
Pre-orders as a marketing strategy need to die anyways. They're another brick in the wall of predatory behavior that feeds triple-A publishers and the nonstop avalanche of underwhelming titles. More gamers need to wake up to this reality and stop buying into the pre-order scam, outside fringe cases of highly-controversial games. It sucks this is what's come of the Battlefield franchise, but oh well.
Sadly, this isn't an indication of preorders dying. CoD's preorders are still doing fine apparently, BF5 is just much worse in comparison to it when contrasted with how it fared in past years.
 

Mcgeezaks

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Windknight said:
BabyfartsMcgeezaks said:
It's almost like the developers told their audience that they are uneducated/on the wrong side of history and should not buy it if they didn't like what they saw. Looks like they got exactly what they wanted, congrats EA/DICE!
(shrugs) if you think women didn't fight in world war two, then yes you are both. Maybe not the politest way to put it, but its the truth.

I'm laying this more at the leftover stench of Battlefront II debacle. The pay to win loot box BS has hurt confidence and trust, if EA had any in the first place.
Ah yes that's the problem, they just didn't know! Remember all that outrage about playing a woman in BF1? Hmmm
 

Hawki

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BabyfartsMcgeezaks said:
Ah yes that's the problem, they just didn't know! Remember all that outrage about playing a woman in BF1? Hmmm
The outrage that time was the "blackwashing" of the conflict with an African American on the cover and Indians being in the British Empire faction.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Windknight said:
if you think women didn't fight in world war two
They didn't, at least not officially as part of any Allied armies on the Western front.
They did make up 1.5% of the Russian front, and also part of the French resistance. That's about it as far as I'm aware.
 

Zontar

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BabyfartsMcgeezaks said:
It's almost like the developers told their audience that they are uneducated/on the wrong side of history and should not buy it if they didn't like what they saw. Looks like they got exactly what they wanted, congrats EA/DICE!
Social status: Woke

Financial status: Broke

Frequency of occurrence: 100%
 

Zontar

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Hawki said:
BabyfartsMcgeezaks said:
Ah yes that's the problem, they just didn't know! Remember all that outrage about playing a woman in BF1? Hmmm
The outrage that time was the "blackwashing" of the conflict with an African American on the cover and Indians being in the British Empire faction.
It should be remembered that African American was representing the French, who yes did have African Americans transferred to them near the war's end, but didn't change the fact that once again the French where being ignored in the war they paid one of the highest prices for in blood.

Expecting people not to get upset is something only an American could have believed.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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Windknight said:
(shrugs) if you think women didn't fight in world war two, then yes you are both. Maybe not the politest way to put it, but its the truth.

I'm laying this more at the leftover stench of Battlefront II debacle. The pay to win loot box BS has hurt confidence and trust, if EA had any in the first place.
Pretty much; there are tons of stories about female soldiers in World War II, even if they had to do so clandestinely (which is precisely WHY they're interesting). Poland actually had active women combatants during the invasion of the country, the Russian army has women enlisted, and of course there were the myriad spies in resistance groups or the military. They're fascinating stories and are well worth having.

As for the matter at hand, there are probably WAY more factors going on. EA in general has been having trouble lately what with their output slowing to a crawl and having quite a few fumbles like with Battlefront II.
 

Lufia Erim

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Eacaraxe said:
Pre-orders as a marketing strategy need to die anyways. They're another brick in the wall of predatory behavior that feeds triple-A publishers and the nonstop avalanche of underwhelming titles. More gamers need to wake up to this reality and stop buying into the pre-order scam, outside fringe cases of highly-controversial games. It sucks this is what's come of the Battlefield franchise, but oh well.

See I would be okay with a cyberpunk girl with a cricket bat fighting Nazi clones with a guy armed with a katana. Just don't claim its historically accurate. Make it an alternate history steam pink World war 2 game.
Oh yeah, I'd totally play a Battlefield-style steampunk alternate-history WWII game in a heartbeat. As long as it's not an EA product, anyhow.

Just one caveat, it has to have Nazi mecha.
I pre-orderes CoD black ops 4. During E3, the pre-order was 50% off on amazon and walmart. So instead of paying 100$CAD, i paid 50$CAD. It was a good deal.

Having said that the same was true for Battlefield. I just don't like battlefield for reasons unrelated to women.
 

Hawki

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Zontar said:
It should be remembered that African American was representing the French,
No, he was representing the Harlam Hellfighters. The French African forces weren't introduced later until DLC with the French faction as a whole.

...because of course the USA is a base faction while France is DLC. 0_0

Expecting people not to get upset is something only an American could have believed.
I'm Australian. And I did expect people to get upset that the French (and Russians) were left as DLC while the US (who played a vital role, albiet late one) was a base faction. What I didn't expect was the whole "controversy" that erupted over the Harlam Hellfighters and, to a lesser extent, British India.

Zontar said:
Social status: Woke

Financial status: Broke

Frequency of occurrence: 100%
Is there a single instance of any company going bankrupt over being "woke?"
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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If the stupid bastards had just said ?What you?re seeing here is the multiplayer where we thought customisation should be king so you can make your player character who or whatever you like and make the whole thing play like a pulp adventure story. A little later we?ll demo some of the single player which has a more realistic and historically plausible campaign? then they?d be fine.
 

Squilookle

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Every day it's looking less and less like the proper sequel to BF 1942 that so many of us hoped for.

Hawki said:
Zontar said:
It should be remembered that African American was representing the French,
No, he was representing the Harlam Hellfighters. The French African forces weren't introduced later until DLC with the French faction as a whole.

...because of course the USA is a base faction while France is DLC. 0_0
I don't know why, but Zontar is the only one here who for some reason thinks the African American on the cover was representing the French. Even though you play as him in the prelude, alongside other Americans, as a Harlem Hellfighter, and after completing the prelude get an info codex about the Hellfighters, meanwhile the French are nowhere to be seen- being completely absent from the base game for some insane reason until their DLC, as already explained.

What I didn't expect was the whole "controversy" that erupted over the Harlam Hellfighters and, to a lesser extent, British India.
Call me ignorant but I never really saw all that much cultural controversy in the lead up to BF1 outside the abundance of Black characters in the German faction. Far as I could tell people were more puzzled that the Indian medic carried crutches rather than the fact he was Indian. Outrage over there being a female protagonist in one of the singleplayer war stories seemed virtually nonexistent for BF1.
 

Zontar

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Hawki said:
No, he was representing the Harlam Hellfighters. The French African forces weren't introduced later until DLC with the French faction as a whole.
Not how it was framed in the lead up to the release.
...because of course the USA is a base faction while France is DLC. 0_0
Yeah for some reason the developers got that order mixed up, making Team Showed-Up-At-The-End-And-Did-Nothing part of the main show while the main show of the Western Front was again snuffed and treated like a footnote.
I'm Australian. And I did expect people to get upset that the French (and Russians) were left as DLC while the US (who played a vital role, albiet late one) was a base faction. What I didn't expect was the whole "controversy" that erupted over the Harlam Hellfighters and, to a lesser extent, British India.
Blame it on marketing, guess Battlefield 1 was starting to let what killed Battlefield 5 start to seep in.
Zontar said:
Social status: Woke

Financial status: Broke

Frequency of occurrence: 100%
Is there a single instance of any company going bankrupt over being "woke?"
Technically Marvel Comics given how long its been operating in the red, certainly all the comic shops they've seen go under, that company that developed the Ghostbusters game that tied into the shitty remake, Sony Pictures could count since they lost 700 million last year and haven't been profitable in almost a decade, DICE seems to be heading that way at the moment, BioWare got it hard (being reduced to effectively keeping SWTOR running now), the NFL given its viewership numbers (at a time cable sports is on the upswing in numbers), Star Wars, Star Trek, the list goes on.

Who could have guessed that catering to a small fringe market that doesn't like to pay to buy stuff in lieu of one that does would not be a smart business decision? Really at this point one can't even blame ignorance for companies doing this type of thing, there's really no excuse anymore since anyone in a position of power should, by virtue of their position, know that.
 

Hawki

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Zontar said:
Not how it was framed in the lead up to the release.
I didn't see any kind of framing.

Technically Marvel Comics given how long its been operating in the red, certainly all the comic shops they've seen go under,
Can't comment, but physical comic sales have declined across the board.

that company that developed the Ghostbusters game that tied into the shitty remake,
Um, the game was generally regarded as being pretty bad, not sure what that has to do with anything. Even if Ghostbusters didn't have the controversy (because female leads are "controversial" these days apparently), the game would have tanked regardless.

Sony Pictures could count since they lost 700 million last year and haven't been profitable in almost a decade,
And how are Sony "woke?"

Asides from Ghostbusters, and even then, it being "woke" is more a declaration some made because there's nothing in the film that expresses any kind of "wokeness."

DICE seems to be heading that way at the moment,
Let's be generous and assume that BF5 is an example of being "woke," can you name any other examples? Unless Mirror's Edge is an example by virtue of having a female protagonist, which seems to be the criteria here.

BioWare got it hard (being reduced to effectively keeping SWTOR running now),
First of all, BioWare's already working on Dragon Age IV, Anthem, and is already planning "Mass Effect 5" (for want of a better title). They're hardly "broke" right now.

Second of all, the decline of BioWare is generally attributed to a number of factors, namely Dragon Age 2 having rushed production, Mass Effect 3 having a terrible ending (and depending on who you ask, multiple other features), Dragon Age Inquisition being dull as dishwater with a tepid open world template, Mass Effect Andromeda having similar issues, and Anthem being a percieved "betrayal" by some because it's shifted away from the "BioWare template." So I'm not sure what BioWare has to do with any of the "wokeness" you're suggesting, because the only suggestions I've seen for that is Inquisition (something about qunari) and Andromeda, the latter of which was debunked by Kotaku.

the NFL given its viewership numbers (at a time cable sports is on the upswing in numbers),
No idea what this is about - kneeling?

Star Wars, Star Trek,
No. Just no.

I know the arguments you're going to try and use for this, I'm not interested in hearing them again.

Also, neither Star Trek nor Star Wars are approaching "broke" either.

Who could have guessed that catering to a small fringe market that doesn't like to pay to buy stuff in lieu of one that does would not be a smart business decision?
Well, so far you haven't cited any examples of catering, so I don't know. And if we swing back to Battlefield V...oh no, the horror, people can choose to play as females. You could simply choose not to play as them, but something something SJW, something something censorship, zzz...

Squilookle said:
Call me ignorant but I never really saw all that much cultural controversy in the lead up to BF1 outside the abundance of Black characters in the German faction.
Oh yeah, forgot about that.

And yes, you're right, one of the German classes is black, even though no Afro-German soldiers served in Europe. That's a historical inaccuracy...one of many.

Here's the thing that no-one's ever been able to adequately explain, why some inaccuracies in Battlefield are apparently far worse than others. Looking at BF5 for instance, if you were going to get outraged about anything, I thought it would be the replacement of Dutch and Norwegian forces in the Netherlands by British ones, even in battles that the British never participated in. If your grievance really is "historical revisionism," then that kind of thing is far more egregious than the OPTION of playing as females.

But no. Compulsory replacement of historical armies? That's fine. Optional choice of playing as playing as females? "SJW!"