EA admits disappointment with Warfighter sales
Warfighter has proven to be disappointing for most critics, but this has not stopped it performing well in the UK sales charts.
Chief executive John Riccitiello stated in a financial earnings call following its Q2 results that the game had 'weaker than expected performance' which will have an impact on EA's next quarterly results.
Warfighter shipped last week and has received a near-universal critical mauling. Following its launch, it required an extensive day-one patch to resolve a wide variety of issues which raised a few eyebrows.
Despite this however, Medal of Honour: Warfighter has still risen to the top sales spot in the UK and EA intends to continue marketing support throughout the Christmas period, planning its first piece of downloadable content in December which will tie in to the release of film Zero Dark Thirty.
'While we're disappointed with the critical response, we believe this is a good game with a receptive audience,' said EA President Frank Gibeau.
In its Q2 financial results, EA posted a 40% year-on-year growth in digital revenue. Total revenue for the period was $1.08bn with overall profit for Q2 being $49m. In the earnings call, Riccitiello also picked out the strong performance of EA Sports mainstays Madden, NFL and FIFA as well as the success of The Simpsons: Tapped Out for iOS.
Riccitiello also commented that the strength of the FIFA and Battlefield series mean they are 'well on their way to becoming billion dollar annual franchises.'
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Discuss in the forums ReplyBut the problem is, we're now going to experience an upsurge in rather jaded purchasers who bought MOHW and expected a polished game. Sure it probably is now, but still, reputations go a long way.
Buggy gameplay.
Poor graphics that look like the game was made 5 years ago even on max detail settings.
No VOIP disable option, so that you can either have it on and hear everyone or off and hear no one.
Small map's that make the Call Of Duty maps look massive.
Limited amount of maps.
Enemy players die faster in Softcore than they do in Immersive which is Hardcore to regular people.
Cheaters are running rampant because Punkbuster isn't working properly and there is no Rcon type tool's around.
Weapons unlock system is not easy to figure out.
Spawn system is messed up.
Game doesn't remember what you have set as a weapon class, meaning you have to set it each time you load the game.
Game crashes forcing a pc reboot after leaving 1 server to join another, this happens even after a fresh install of Win7/8, cpu oc'd or not and Beta or Non Beta drivers.
Pings are all over the place, UK servers giving pings of over 200ms but BF3 servers give pings of just over 35ms.
I am still playing it because I understand that some of the issues will be fixed in patches, but the fact that they have made this game look so bad is a joke.
I have just got my Alpha Key through for the Crysis 3 Alpha trial that starts tomorrow, and I am fairly confident that the game even in Alpha stage is going to perform, feel and look better than Medal Of Honor.
I still think that the game at half price because of being a BF3 Premium Member was to much, after playing it as the developers in my oppinion do not deserve to be paid for this failure of a game.
Not saying EA will ever die off, they have so many sure-fire franchises going on for that to happen and a virtual monopoly on sports games, but they are going to feel the pinch unless start to do better.
Good to see someone give an opinion on a game and actually give some constructive criticism
rather than "It's crap BF3 kicks it's ass" as so many people (10 year olds do )
It's always disappointing when a new game in a series you have been playing for years is a let down, I've don't play online but it seems that it is as flawed as the single player game as demonstrated in this video, unfortunately it does seem like many new games are aimed at young players that need to be lead through a level, hence, the very strict linear game play.
The official EA response says the game needs a "receptive audience" so does that mean 10 year old xboxers who think any game with guns is a good game and who won't notice or question the limitations of the game.
JOHyD49DaeA
I never take much notice of what self appointed ranting game critics have to say on youtube but this video does appear to show the very restricted game play in the single player mode of Warfighter, literally if you stray off your chosen path you die
If EA released a patch which allowed completely non linear game play then I would try it but as that's highly unlikely and probably impossible to do anyway I'll go play good old MoH Allied Assault Warchest
We need an inquest. Get that bloke with the beard from Games Master on the case..Dominic what ever hes called. Something at EA has to change.
Brilliant analysis, the issue for myself was that despite using the frostbite engine it looks like a poor console port (which in essence it is, though the menus don't make sense on any platform).
I think we all expected a much prettier game after all despite all its flaws, bf3 is a very very good looking game.
Dominic Diamond.....not forgetting the Golden Joystick Award!
On the flip side I think it was a bad move to follow CoD out of the past. MoH wasn't and isn't about that. The recent games have been a very dim flicker of what made the original on PSX and for that matter Allied Assault the great games they are. Extremely atmospheric, gritty and authentic solo experience. And not cashing in on Xbox Live home grown 13 year olds with no recollection of the first games or for that matter what makes a good game.
Compare the latest installment from each franchise to their respective originals and you'd be hard pressed to tell that they were part of the same series. That's when you know it's time to move on.
Welcome to the last 10 years.
Now now Yahtzee. ;)
The reason behind this I gather is purely investment safety. Why make new risky IP and dump millions when you can re-hash old IP? It's kind of the similar thing that pop music and rather bland mainstream East/West-Coast hip hop has going on. The fact that there are innovations is entirely thrown under the bus by the executives (nebulous folk they are) who wish to have not only a good ROI but something that's easily sold.
It also doesn't help that most video gamers do indeed act like Ritalin-fueled children. I understand that there are serious gamers, but the reality (and the sad one) is that honestly we're the minority preaching for a more serious and artistic genre. Look at all the games that HAVE reached this perfect equilibrium...
Most are all but forgotten.