What Really Went Wrong With Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 was arguably the most anticipated First person shooter of 201. So why is there suddenly Battlefield players moving over to MW3 or taking a break from Battlefield because of their experiences with Battlefield 3? Today that's what we will be looking at; what went wrong with Battlefield 3.

First we will be looking at how EA went wrong with advertising the game to beat Call of Duty in sales. Also why CoD is overall preferred more than Battlefield. 

Even though DICE has been striving for a new and fresh multiplayer every game were as CoD has been, except for different weapons and loadout options, the same game since 2007 with CoD:4. Most people prefer Call of Duty over Battlefield because the fact that you can get into a match quick, play a couple of games really quick without requiring a friend to help out with winning. Where with Battlefield, to have the best experience you have to have friends to play with, also with longer and more tedious matches. And just that difference between games will steer people away from one or the other, mostly with people steering towards the Call of Duty; easier, not very hard to pick-up on gameplay.
 

Another issue that changed the fate of Battlefield 3 was the release date. EA had been moving the release of the game around quite a bit, just to compete with the MW3 release date which they knew was going to take place in November. This was a big mistake and really changed how the game would eventually turn out. Dates should never be changed just to compete with a game that they knew they would never beat in sales. This in the end made feedback from the beta hard to use to fix the game before the release of the game. What EA should have done is delayed the game until at least mid-December of 2011 so that DICE could have had a good 2 months to tweak the game from beta feedback. But instead, DICE got about a week after the end of the beta to tweak the game before the game went to the printing press. This ended up being the nail in the coffin for the games sales and gameplay in the end. So instead of the developer ruining the game, the publisher did.

But the biggest problem with Battlefield 3 in my opinion wasn't any of these other things I've mentioned, but instead, it was DICE themselves. DICE was not clear enough when relaying info to the community. They lost numbers of sales just because they didn't properly state that the beta after all, was a great example of a beta. Also when patching and fixing problems from the beta and from the final game. Probably one of the most complained about problem in the Battlefield 3 Beta was the Tactical flashlight. Yet, DICE did not fix the brightness of it after a overload of feedback about it. And still to this day, the tactical flashlight is not fixed on consoles. And that brings me to my last point; DICE favoring PC. In today's gaming world, the PC rules in graphics because of its unlimited functionality, and because of consoles lacking power. But all game developers support their games equally on all platforms--but not DICE! They have now released a number of patches on PC without releasing them on console, and also not to mention the fact that PC multiplayer maps are larger and have more conquest flags, players, ect. DICE must not understand that PC players make-up less than one third of all their players. Shouldn't they at least be supporting the platform with most players the most? 

DICE and their decisions just don't make much sense to me, and with all of these problems stated above, you should agree with me. With better marketing, better response to feedback, and knowing who they were selling the game to; DICE could have made a much better game. 

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Posted in: Battlefield 3, BF3, DICE, EA, Mistakes, What went wrong