Ever since Activision’s Call of Duty became the biggest franchise of the generation, publisher EA has been desperate to take the shooter crown with a lucrative franchise of their own, with their most aggressive and most successful attempt so far being Battlefield 3.
EA Games head Patrick Soderlund told MCV that the commercial success of Battlefield 3 undoubtedly worried Activision, but with Battlefield 4 the fight will be all the more fierce.
Competition is good. It brings the best out of people. If there was only Battlefield or only Call of Duty, then the development teams might have been a little bit more content. We don’t look at them necessarily and mimic what they do.
But we think about them. Maybe they weren’t thinking about us much when we made Battlefield 3, but I can tell you, they are thinking about us now. They need too. We made a dent in the FPS market and we took share from them. And I am not going to give up until I’m No.1 and I am going to make sure I’m No.1.
We are spending a ton of money on this, our teams are killing themselves every year to make great games. I want to give our consumers the best I can. We will strive to be No.1. If I said: ‘No.5 is probably fine,’ it’s hard for people to rally behind that message. But I wouldn’t say we could be No.1 if I didn’t think we could. I think I have the right team, the right product and the right strategy to get there.
While Battlefield may be able to give Call of Duty a run for its money, it doesn’t release annually like CoD, with EA previously using Medal of Honor on alternating years. However, after poor reviews and sales, the franchise was killed. Soderlund addressed the issue, saying:
We have other games now. We have Titanfall, which we didn’t have when we had Medal of Honor. To me it is about a balanced portfolio.
Will you be picking up either of the games this holiday season? Or are you fed up with shooters already? Let us know in the comments below.
