What we do know is that, regardless of critical reception, Battlefield 1 is going to be a big hit. The original Titanfall, though fairly popular, was still fairly underwhelming; a sentiment epitomized by its inability to maintain a sizeable base of players in the months after launch. The game simply did not have a decent player retention rate and it should be treated with delicacy moving forward.
Yet, EA might very well be sending it out to die again versus Battlefield 1 with this extraordinarily cramped launch schedule. Confusingly, EA have the financial muscle to just hold out on Titanfall 2 and give it a proper launch in a different window, far removed from Battlefield 1. It’s just a mightily confusing move that might well prove a strategic error.
Perhaps the only shining light of the entire conference was the debut of the rather cute looking adventure title Fe. That being said, it certainly felt a little shoehorned in. In fact, though the game does look really interesting, it’s a perplexing addition to EA’s portfolio and really doesn’t seem to fit the publisher’s motif. It’s a similarly bewildering inclusion as games like Unravel and Mirror’s Edge; while those are certainly interesting titles, are they really EA Games? They just don’t seem to fit in among EA’s corporate imperatives with their annualized franchises such as Madden, FIFA, and Battlefield.
It seems as though EA’s game portfolio is almost too diverse for a conference. Clearly there’s a corporate imperative to invest time in EA Sports, but even despite their franchises that are associated with that division of the company, nobody cares and nobody wants them to get stage time. The current set up of wedging their big AAA IPs in between montages of sports titles such as Madden and FIFA just does not work.
There is perhaps a case for EA creating a separate conference for their sports franchises. Indeed, if EA were to space out their E3 presence and reserve the conference for discussing the release of their blockbuster game franchises it would surely be more effective. It would certainly do more to amass hype and excitement for titles that the gaming community want to see from EA.
It seems ironic that the recent commentary of E3 losing some of its value has been popularized by the departure of big publishers such as EA. Yet, the company still continues to conduct these rather subpar conferences that hardly have enough content to justify their existence. Indeed, there has perhaps never been a better example of why EA should just end their presence at E3 all together and focus on their own EA Play events in the future.
