A lot of gamers criticized Electronic Arts for releasing Titanfall 2 between Battlefield 1 and Activision’s upcoming Call of Duty title, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. However, EA defended its decision as it believes that both games will have a long sale cycle.
As EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson said in today’s earnings call, and while Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 have some overlap, they fulfill very different motivations in what a player is looking for.
“We think there’s really three types of players. People that really love Battlefield and that kind of big strategic gameplay that will orient in that direction; the player that loves the fast, fluid, kinetic gameplay of Titanfall 2 that really orient in that direction; and the player that just has to play the two greatest shooters this year and will buy both.”
Wilson claimed that EA is very excited about the quality in both titles, and that both Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 will have a long sale cycle.
To his credit, Wilson is right as both Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 are two well polished products. Respawn has just released the first PC update for Titanfall 2 that comes with various performance improvements, and includes a new adaptive resolution scaling option (ideal for those with weaker GPUs).
EA’s CFO Blake Jorgensen added that EA will work with Respawn on building the Titanfall franchise for many, many years to come.
“Part of the strategy of building a franchise is you have a long view. You think about the business differently than you might an existing franchise like a FIFA or a Madden. What that means is we’re looking for ways to not fragment the player base early, but to include [as many players] as we can to continue to build that franchise. We think that’s the right strategy for a product like Titanfall.”
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Titanfall 2 has an advantage over Call of duty, no season pass. that will help the game live longer if every player can get all the additional maps just buying the initial game.
It’s definitely on my radar when a sale happens. I played the 1st and it was a really good game that was short on content and players(on pc at least).
Titanfall 2 should not sell well, not because of its timing but because it is a watered down version of the first game clearly designed to cater to the lowest common denominator.
What? Everything I’ve heard is that it is improved from the 1st one with even more content. The 1st one felt like half a game when it came out yet this one is a watered down version? So this is like a quarter of a game you’re saying?
Pilot movement is great, pilot weapons are diverse, weapon attachment are diverse. There are no more burn cards, which I really enjoyed in Titanfall.
Titan’s have been royally nerfed. No recharging shield. Very limited health. NO CUSTOMIZATION. There are 6 cookie cutter titans to choose from, only 2 of which are any good for most maps. They are easy to take down even if you are a pilot. No health regen, no shield regen. You can plink them until they die.
Take Ronin for instance. It is on a stryder chasis, has the least health, and is equipped with a shotgun and sword. Sword right? It doesn’t do any more damage than a regular titan melee. You have to get close to use the shotgun. So 1 of 6 titans is a a low health close quarters combat titan with 0 survivability.
No weapon changes, marginal special abilities of varying usefulness. All your choices are gone.
Nothing new, really.
They’ve been saying this ever since they launched Battlefield 3 within weeks of Call of Duty, 5 years ago.
It is funny to see this still going on 5 years later though.
EA is stupid..like always.
at least they are cannibalizing themselves.
EA is not stupid, they know full well what they are doing. If Titanfall 2 under-performs its sales projections, it’ll lower the value of the brand, making it easy for them to buy it outright from Respawn (Respawn owns the IP, not EA).
If it ends up selling well in the long run, maybe they won’t be able to make a move on the IP, but they’ll still be making enough money off of it. It’s a smart business move, win/win for them either way.
It makes sense for EA because it means they can eventually buy TF or Respawn over time and merge them into their brand, which is common for those that sell under EA.
As always Battlefield has a 2 year life cycle which I wouldn’t call long. After those 2 years all support drops, if not earlier. See Battlefield 2 which is being held alive by modders after Gamespy broke. EA didn’t bother to maintain a classic that had survived a decade.
As for Titanfall 2, I still don’t think anyone actually wants that game. On PC, that is. On consoles there’s no faster FPS so I can understand that it has an audience there. Lifespan? TF1 lived for a couple weeks on PC, I think. It was one of those hype games that drops off the map as soon as people get to play the game. Titanfall 2 should be different since this time there’s no big hype or people unfamiliar with the concept (except on PS4). I don’t believe Titanfall 2 can be a good success but EA must have access to numbers that say otherwise somehow.
How many companies do you know that support a game for a decade? Lol that’s your complaint?
With multiplayer games that is what long-term means. Decades. Quake, Counterstrike, Starcraft, Warcraft, you name it. Important multiplayer games are supported for decades by the companies that make them. And it extends to “sales” as well. You can still find copies of Counterstrike (the original) in stores right now. Do you think you’ll see a copy of Battlefield 1 in a game store even 5 years from now? If you do it won’t be the result of anything EA did.
“Big strategic gameplay” of Butterfiend? Very funny.
I’d call it slow, static, camping peekaboo bang you’re dead kind of gameplay.
2 greatest shooters this year? Not this century at least? Man you gotta brush up on your PR skills.
Goes to show what a stellar year it has been.
How many shooters can you name that are bigger and more strategic? Only one I can think of is ARMA 3. Please help me out because if there’s something better than those two I want in.
Battlefield is still “big”, but strategic? Hell no.
They threw strategy out the window after 2142.
Long sale cycles is all they caere about.