It's been a while since I wrote a blog, and the reason is that I haven't been inspired to...until yesterday.

I was trawling through my twitter feed (@sgttonyvilliers) and read the following from Alan Kertz of DICE (@Demize99) :

"Is it possible that Play4Free models are actually replacing (and expanding) the 20-30$ boxed product?"

Now, I'm not industry insider, but I would have thought this would have hardly come as a surprise to the industry heads (of which I would count Alan Kertz), after all the massive following that DayZ got was because of two reasons;

1. It was good fun and involved to play

2. A lot of BF3 players were disenchanted with the way DICE had gone with Premium and their refusal to properly listen to the public.

The second part of this is hugely reflected in the ratio of BF3 owners to BF3 Premium owners, and even more damning, was the fact that when the Devs came on and offered their tags, they did so only in game modes that Premium owners would have (initially CQ and then AK), in an attempt to lure people into buying Premium simply because they wanted to get some Dev tags (I would point out that I bought Premium because I could afford to and because I believe that DICE were giving us something worthwhile).

This aside, we now have Alan Kertz asking, almost rhetorically it would seem, if Play4Free can expand or overtake the 20-30$ boxed games. In short the answer is in another question. Would you rather pay 30$ for a game or pay nothing? Planetside 2 is a guide here. The game has a large following from Planetside 1 and people are excited to play it again.

But perhaps the largest problem from DICE's POV is that a large tranche of BF players are moving away from BF3 DESPITE the new maps and game modes because DICE have failed to either a) realise or b) act on the knowledge that their large game base of players is NOT COD but remains true to the spirit of Battlefield which seems to have been diluted since EA's involvement with DICE.

EA bought a controlling share (62%) of DICE in 2005. Before this all DICE BF games were on PC or MAc only. In the year that Ea bought in, DICE were releasing DLC for BF2142, and released BF2 (following with addons for BF2 later on). The very next BF title, released in 2008, was BF Bad Company and THIS was cross-platform. This is a clear indication that it is EA who pushed for mutli-platform release, and in the main this was to compete with other similar games, the main threat being COD so that is where EA have set their sights. (In fact, EA CEO John Riccitiello stated that Battlefield 3 is aimed at competing with the Call of Duty series. "This November, we're launching Battlefield 3. It's going up against the next Call of Duty, which is presently the No. 1 game in the game industry," he said, "A game that last year did $400 million in revenue on day one. Battlefield 3 is designed to take that game down.")

This means that the BF players who PTFO and want team based games, are getting fed up of EA/DICE's apparent need to draw players from COD. The harsh truth is that those who play exclusively COD aren't going to play BF and vice-versa. The cross-over (middle of the van-diagram) players are likely to be more coming from COD, granted, but they aren't clued in to the traditional core values of what BF is SUPPOSED to be about. Hence they don't necessarily add anything to the evolution of the BF series. Unfortunately in an attempt to bring players over, DICE is chipping away at the core traditional values, and the core game-play features (squad VOiP, Commander Mode, and Battle Recorder for example) for 2 main reasons that I can see 1) To make it easier for the COD based players to transition and 2) Because it's easier to port from or to Console from PC.

Further evidence of the drop off in players is found in the stats provided at www.gamestat.com where the downward trend is very obvious. In November 2011, BF3 had around 75,000 players per day playing the game. It's trended downwards, averaging at 25,000 per day by June. That's an average drop off of 50,000 players in 7 months. I'm not sure that this can solely be attributed to players being bored of the game. After all, B2K was released in December 2011, and despite a spike of player interest, the downward trend continued by January! In June, CQ was released and again interest spiked. This time it held, but the downward trend is still noticeable until September when AK is released. Aftershock will be released in December so it's likely that interest has plateaued. For now. But we have a whole year to wait until End Game is realesed and I can't see figures holding unless EA/DICE take more interest in what we want.

Furthermore, it's very easy to see that DICE are concerned that their buy-to-play DLCs would suffer from Modding. I dispute this. If a game has to be bought and paid for in able for you to play the mod, then how can Modding affect it? A mod can be transposed onto DLC's but the gamer still needs the DLC to play it.

Normally I look at decisions made by people in various industries in a business light. It helps to rationalise the thinking behind some decisions, much like above. However I am now arguing as a player about why Modding should be allowed.

When you think about it, as demonstrated by DayZ, modding only enhances the game. It's a win-win situation. If the mod requires the original game (which of course it does) to be bought, from a business point of view, what's the problem? None. Oh, you might conceivably argue about Intellectual Property concerns but I doubt IP would concern a business if the sales of its games rocketed by 130%.

Secondly, Modding lives or dies by its success at attracting gamers. It has no track record. No fan-base to sell into. A mod of a game only works if players like it, if it offers and enhancement (key word) to the existing base-game. Therefore one could readily surmise that an intelligent and truly customer-base-aware studio would welcome modding for the simple reason that a mod can show the studio what is really turning players towards their game. How many people owned Arma before DayZ. Certainly the figures suggest a MASSIVE increase in sales once gamers realised there was a good game to be had (and a lot of BF3 players dropped out from BF3 and the premium package because they felt DayZ offered more to them than BF3 did or could).

The sad fact is that DICE have concentrated on additional income DLC without realising that hurtful truth. That comparatively speaking, we are not interested in new game play styles, new tanks, new camouflages. What we are interested in is a game that is what we are interested in. We want BF to work like we are used to. The old adage of "The public likes what they know, and know what they like" is true. They have strayed too far from (and given ill-though reasons for doing so) the game that their public likes and knows.

To rescue this situation, they need to allow mods. Let us show you what we want! Look at how Arma reacted to the DayZ mod. They bought the guy on board to help create a standalone game. Brilliant. They didn't worry about how it would affect Arma 3, they brought him into the fold to help further their business. All DICE has to do is do the same thing with ideas that succeed from mods in BF3.

Then, you use our mods to improve your game and (this being the killer point) MORE PEOPLE WILL BUY THE GAME.

It's insanity from a gaming sense and a business sense to let this go unchanged. From a business sense you get free research and game engineering and from a gaming sense you provide a game that want to play, which in turn means from a business sense you get more money, which means from a gaming sense, your much loved franchise continues to improve and enhance the game we love to play.

EA...DICE...look at the figures. You have already beaten MW3 into the ground. Yours is undoubtedly a superior game. Now it's time to let us help you make it even better.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. WIN-WIN.

Tony Villiers
BSM SGT
@sgttonyvilliers