EA News Bundle: Battlefront is Shallow, and 2017 is Gonna Rock

EA attended two major conferences recent-ish--the Nasdaq Investor Conference and the Credit Suisse Technology, Media, and Telecom conference, in Europe and Arizona, respectively. At each venue, they said something worth reporting on, but since they happened so close to one another, both pertain to EA and it’s games, and are both pretty small, sure--let’s throw them together into one article. Saving the trees and all that.

The first, from the Nasdaq Investor Conference, is something of a humbling moment for EA: CFO Blake Jorgensen, speaking on the success of Star Wars: Battlefront, the DICE remake of the 2004 third-person shooter, admitted that some of the criticisms of the game were fair--namely, the perceived lack of depth. Of course, he didn’t say it as if it were a bad thing, otherwise he’d be pretty bad at his job. And I quote--
 

"Star Wars Battlefront is a first-person shooter, but it is [one of] the only teen-rated first-person shooters. We had designed it to be a much more accessible product to a wide age group. So, an 8-year-old could play with his father on the couch, as well as a teenager or 20-year-old could play the game and enjoy it. It is more accessible… for the hardcore, it may not have the depth that they wanted in the game.”

Never minding the fact an 8 year old isn’t supposed to play a T-rated game, I think the logical counterpoint would be that a game’s rating generally has no relationship with its mechanical complexity, and if 8-year-olds can build giant skyscrapers in Minecraft they could have probably managed to cope with slightly more complex weapon loadouts. But, hey--there’s a logic to their thinking and at least they’re addressing it.

Moving on to the Credit Suisse Technology, Media, and Telecom conference, EA had much to say, but it wasn’t a humblebrag this time--it was just a straight-up boast. Here, they announced that Mirror’s Edge Catalyst would be pushed back to 2017… and admitted it was a problem because they had so many other amazing games coming out in 2017 (an “Embarrassment of Riches”, in his words) they have to keep their own games from becoming their own competition.

2017 will see the release of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2 and a new Battlefield and Titanfall. Quite the lineup. Not quite sure I’d call it an embarrassment of riches, but heck, I’m not being paid to make EA sound good, so.

Regardless, something to look forward too, I guess, while you complain about Battlefront’s lack of depth.