Battlefield 3 doesn't have to outsell Modern Warfare 3 to be a success, according to EA chief operating officer Peter Moore.
"It's less about being second place. This is about taking market share," Moore told Gamespot.
"This is really about a long-term strategy in what we think is a very important shooter segment that has driven over the last few years multiple billions of dollars of revenue into the industry.
"If you look at last year, you might argue that Call of Duty took maybe 90 percent of the market share. We think we can knock that down to 70 percent this year. We don't have to outsell Call of Duty to have a very successful year. This is a long-term strategy to be a major player."
Moore called upon a different genre that hosts a similarly fierce battle for the number one spot to illustrate EA's strategy.
"We've got a precedent," he pointed out. "If you remember, FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer used to be as recently as three or four years ago, head-to-head in a lot of markets, with PES as the dominant brand.
"We invested enormously in both the quality of the game, the marketing, a real focus on getting the game right, and being there for gamers and building a community around it. It's no different than what we intend to do in the shooter category."
Moore's comments on the Battlefield and Call of Duty rivalry are more measured than some of EA's previous ones, which have led to criticism from Activision. Earlier this week, Activision Publishing boss Eric Hirshberg condemned EA CEO John Riccitiello's Call of Duty mudslinging.
Comments
35 comments so far...
WHERESMYMONKEY on 19 Aug '11 said:
I don't understand why you cant have both. Whats the fight it's like saying you can only watch platoon or Full metal Jacket for the rest of your life. Its rediculous.
Either way i'll probably pass on both of them for a while at least. there's too many other more intereresting games out this year.
GalacticLlama on 19 Aug '11 said:
If I get one of these, I'll probably get Battlefield on launch day and then COD at Christmas. Having never played Battlefied (OMG), I'm more looking forward to that than a COD game like every other one. Even if COD sells more copies, I'd be watching how many people signup for COD Elite. I'd probably save my money for that and use it on Battlefield and have 2 great games rather than 1 very great game.
StonecoldMC on 19 Aug '11 said:
Ive always liked Peter Moore but im afraid I cant see Peter winning this battle, if anything, I would expect COD: MW3 to sell even more than Black Ops did last year, therefore increasing its marketshare.
pRM8 on 19 Aug '11 said:
If a game is worth playing then people will buy it, though it might not stop them from purchasing both as EA have said before they are different kind of shooters.
Competition is great and FIFA is a great example of what can be achieved through healthy competition. Konami are now pulling there finger out to improve PES now they have been knocked off the top spot, I wonder if Activision would start to innovate a bit more with CoD if/when EA close the sales gap.
Though saying that, I feel the BF series have been better than the CoD series overall (but I loved CoD1&2) despite the sales differences.
kirankara on 19 Aug '11 said:
This will never outsell mw3 so they are right, it's all about eating into their Market share and building on that for future iterations.
As to why u can't have both, I'm sure u can, just not sure where u get time to play both online, both very time consuming .
allygray69 on 19 Aug '11 said:
bf3 will dominate on the PC sales, mw3 will win on the console
svd_grasshopper on 19 Aug '11 said:
this tactic of mentioning COD every two minutes so the BF names sticks to it (and therefore get more sales) is quite frankly pathetic. DICE must be embarrassed.
KK-Headcharge78 on 19 Aug '11 said:
Good to hear a credible stance for a change on this. Market share is king for these guys, when they spent $300+ million dollars on a new engine the primary reason was to offer a big kick start to taking chunks out of COD, not simply to please fans, this seems to have worked as the 'new engine' drum has been banged throughout by the community so they obviously feel they are getting something spanking new. However lets face it after BF2 it didn't really need one but this strategy has significantly raised the profile of the game. What kind of ruins his argument is the previous ramblings from mainly EA and also Dice that it's gonna beat COD, crush COD, then it isn't, then it is again..... all a bit muddled and as SVD says it is starting to look pretty desperate, a very tired form of marketing.
There's no doubt it will take share from COD which is a good thing, however this is largely due at this stage to the huge marketing campaign and the fact it is released a lot earlier than COD, the picture I feel would be far less rosy if it was a on a same date release.
I'll be buying both, again. It will be interesting to see the figures because while I expect BF to gain numbers I don't expect COD to lose many so taking market share from Activision may not be as great as they would hope, i.e Acti ain't losing it because their fanbase are buying/playing both. Win win
KK-Headcharge78 on 19 Aug '11 said:
The other thing he kind of misses is FIFA took the footballing crown because Konami dropped the PES ball badly thus opening the door, for how long time will tell but PES is clearly coming back.
kakah on 19 Aug '11 said:
LOL @ $300m+, please don't make numbers out of your...it is totally unfeasible and stupid commercially. I suggest you edit your comments for accuracy reasons!
KK-Headcharge78 on 19 Aug '11 said:
Good to see your measured reasoning picks on one figure not the debate. Anyway there's this thing called Google, go on it and measure the technical spend, development spend and implementation spend (i.e the cradle to grave development and marketing) add them together and I think you'll find I was been quite conservative. Also remember this engine is not just for BF but a whole raft of other games in the years to come, peoples understanding of what a game engine is seems to very hugely.
Polarwiseman II on 19 Aug '11 said:
If they are mentioning CoD every two minutes it's because they are getting asked questions about CoD comparisons every two seconds.
"The big holiday fight is shaping up to be Battlefield 3 vs. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. How are you going to measure whether Battlefield 3 was a success? Do you have to outsell Call of Duty, or is simply selling a truckload and coming in a lucrative second place good enough?"
pRM8 on 19 Aug '11 said:
You do realise that CVG just cherry pick the juicy quotes for their "news" articles from the interview from which he was asked numerous questions? And if he (and others involved) was asked certain questions about BF that also concerns CoD what are they supposed to do? Ignore every question thrown at them about BF3 just incase CoD, the market leader and closest rival, crops up?
Get a grip. Or you know, go and read the whole interview.
svd_grasshopper on 19 Aug '11 said:
their many spiels about COD have been well documented. whether or not it's triggered by a question, or 'cherry picked' is irrelevant - they know how it works.
when they trash talk, it's done with the intention of being a headline... and as i said, everytime BF and COD are paired in the same sentence - for them, that's good news for sales.
you're more gullible than most for thinking you're not... idiot.
RustySpoon80 on 19 Aug '11 said:
I'll be getting MW3 launch week just because the supermarkets sell it for less than £30. COD seems to stay at a high price for so long after its launch that it works out cheaper this way. Otherwise I wouldn't bother.
Seeing as each COD is the biggest selling game ever, clearly they dont have to surpass that to be successful otherwise that'd mean every other game is a failure. But EA need to shut up about Cod now, its pathetic.
gmcb007 on 19 Aug '11 said:
Does any other gaming site cover this 'BF3 V MW3' as much as they do here. Seriously sometimes this site feels like the Heat of gaming.
the688 on 19 Aug '11 said:
Exactly. There's a larger audience "share" for BF3 on the PC, as PC-gamers are used to the BF Franchise, and also used to bigger, more complex games. Shooters on console are very similar, and need to be "small and actionpacked", and this is something MW does well. As MW2 did not have dedicated server support, many more PC-gamers chose to look elsewhere, back then.
Even so, Modern Warfare has had a huge "name" for 3 or 4 years now. Battlefield has had one for 10. BF1942 helped define the online "tactical" shooter genre - hell, they invented it - back when FPS was either Quake or UT. Some younger gamers might now know this - but to many of us, BF3 is like "coming home". MW3 is just another FIFA-of-the-year to me. Couldn't care less. BF3 is the sequel to *the* biggest "army shooter" there was for many many years. And personally, I can't wait. I've invested a fortune in upgrading my rig, just for this game. Not because I had to - but because I wanted to.
If you've been into shooters, and you're part of the X360/PS3 generation of gamers, chances are you'll have *no* idea how big BF3 is in the minds of lots of us "old farts"
TheLastDodo on 19 Aug '11 said:
KK you disappoint me, you know full well it's EA and Activision that have carried out this "war", don't lump DICE in with them, DICE have never said anything like "BF3 will crush MW3", they've done everything to keep out of this "war of words". You also forgot that Sledgehammer have popped up on occasion to slag off BF3.
I know your not a CoD fanboy but just show a tiny bit more balance.
As I said yesterday there is no out and out "good guy" in this battle.
turdles on 19 Aug '11 said:
MW3 is really expensive. It's £40-£45.
Cogglesz on 19 Aug '11 said:
I'll be hopefully getting both if Modern Warfare 3 is good on the pc, after buying blops on the ps3 i'm really cautious about call of duty and its online with hackers and glitches, but i've also got a problem with EA and their Origin crap, the EA stores suck, i remember buying SCS and you had an option to pay to keep the download active for a couple years (so you could download it again in the future) i prefer steam where you don't need to pay to keep games, i don't know if its still like that now a days but i really don't want to be using EA's game service what so ever after that experience i had with it, COD MW3 if its good will get purchased before Battlefield 3 just because MW3 is on steam, steam ftw.
pRM8 on 19 Aug '11 said:
Of course it's relevant, it's also called putting it into context. I highly doubt they would mention their competition in every other sentence if they weren't asked directly about CoD, the differences between them or what one game has over the other.
And your more gullible than most for thinking they must just go around speaking about CoD all day and that every time they do answer a question about CoD that it equals another sale.
Oh and calling me an idiot is rich coming from you.
KK-Headcharge78 on 19 Aug '11 said:
Hi mate, I would take your point but what I actally said was EA and Dice have played this 'we are vs COD' and then 'we are not vs COD' merry-go-round. I should have clarified my point better perhaps as Dice's part in this 'handbags' has largely been to say they ain't going for COD, intelligently highlighting the point that their game is different and they want to concentrate on it been a success. Sadly their publisher has not followed suit which has made both parties look a bit daft IMO, again though I agree this isn't Dice's fault.
Oh and I didn't forget about Sledgehammer, it just didn't really figure in the argument because, and I hope you'd agree, that in this whole farce it has been mainly EA throwing s**t, with the odd retort coming from the Acti camp. Either way you look at it is all a bit sad now, brings on the f**king games.
Hope that makes sense
WHERESMYMONKEY on 19 Aug '11 said:
Have you ever paid that for COd though. every year it gets heavily discounted everywhere. so although the rrp may be £40 unless your a complete numpty you'll probably be able to get it for £25-30 at at lunch.
KK-Headcharge78 on 19 Aug '11 said:
Games were £40-45 10 years ago, more if you wanted an import (anyone for Starfox @ £75
)
Figure in then the 2nd hand market and the power some retailers have to shell out games at £25-35 and it kinda makes your point null and void.
If anyone pays £40-50 for either BF3 or MW3 the need their heads read. I reckon BF will be £45 and MW3 will be £50 rrp.
svd_grasshopper on 19 Aug '11 said:
that made really no sense. think before you ramble.
TheLastDodo on 19 Aug '11 said:
Completely KK.
The majority of the "outbursts" have come from EA, with Activision and Sledgehammer (why these guys have piped up I've no idea, they've got less credibility than Treyarch) retorting every now and again, only the blindest of BF fanboys could disagree.
All I'm saying is, as one of the sanest commenters on this site when it comes to BF3 vs MW3 "war" and someone that happens to enjoy both BF and CoD, like myself, this site desperately needs the more impartial commenters to exert their influence and show balance or else the inmates will takeover the asylum so to speak.
KK-Headcharge78 on 19 Aug '11 said:
Agreed DoDo, we must maintain order
TheLastDodo on 19 Aug '11 said:
and take the p**s out of the fanboys too, we're allowed a little fun
.
BenThomasFoster on 19 Aug '11 said:
I hate the gaming industry and the people who have been suckered in by this forstbite 2 engine and defend COD
KK-Headcharge78 on 19 Aug '11 said:
Looks like someone needs a new hobby? In my other spare time I collect dead squirrels so one day I can assemble an army of cyborg squizzers, you should try it gets you out of the house at least.
pRM8 on 19 Aug '11 said:
lol and that did?
Look, I cba bickering with someone that cant seem to read or write properly and only come back with one liners with no points to add. So I'll leave it at that, have a good day.
Kraikky on 19 Aug '11 said:
I'll be buying BF3 but not MW3, Stopped playing FPS' games after MW2, didn't feel like i was getting my moneys worth, yeah the multiplayers fun, eventhough it was just mostly a reskin, but the singleplayer wasn't so good.
BF3 trailers have really got my attention to get back into FPS though, so i'm hoping it will be worth it
The Bossman on 19 Aug '11 said:
You're OBSESSED! Makes me sick. I was never confused...
Joe90_Remy700 on 20 Aug '11 said:
battlefield all the way!
step son is getting mw3 and even tho he has the last 2 cod's too, i dont borrow any no matter how many friends are playing and i dont intend on playing mw3. waw and mw2 put me right off this series and on to bfbc2
rbt2 on 23 Aug '11 said:
Come on mods!
Get rid of this mahoosive cock please.
Next time new mods are picked then get one that's on regular during the day please.