EA Pushing For Free, Ad-Supported Games. Announces Battlefield Heroes

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EA Pushing For Free, Ad-Supported Games. Announces Battlefield HeroesPosted 2:03pm Mon Jan 21, 2008 by Aaron Dunlap Tags: Battlefield Heroes, EA, adver-gaming, business, finance, John Riccitello, Gerhard Florin, PC, casual gaming

In Asian gaming markets like Korea and, to a lesser extent, Japan, there is an entirely distinct business model for video game releasing that's never been tried here in the US at any broad scale or with any success: free games, supported by ads and micro-transactions.

Certain games, like EA's FIFA and a few titles from NC Soft are released for free to download in Korea but give players the option to purchase in-game objects and upgrades. EA's FIFA, for instance, lets you pay a few bucks for customized jersies as well as limited upgrades to a player's stats. Most people just play with what they can get for free, but enough people buy the extras that, combined with revenue from ads placed inside the games (be it actually within gameplay itself or just ads that appear within the interface) for the game to turn a profit.

EA's new chief executive, John Riccitiello, and Gerhard Florin, EA's executive vice president, aim to bring that model to the US starting with a brand new game just announced: Battlefield Heroes.

Not to be confused with Medal of Honor: Heroes, Company of Heroes, Bionacle Heroes, Sonic Heroes, City of Heroes, Heroes of the Pacific, Heroes of Might and Magic, or the TV show Heroes, Battlefield Heroes is a "dumbed-down", cartooned-up entry to the Battlefield franchise aimed at slightly more casual gamers.

“The existing Battlefield games are fairly deep; you have to be pretty good or you’ll die pretty quick,” Gerhard Florin told the New York Times. “Now we’ve toned down the difficulty, shortened each game session to 10 or 15 minutes and made the visual style more cartoony.”

He says that if this is a success, other EA library titles could be given the ad-supported treatment. Worth noting is that these are only PC titles we're talking about here, there's been no mention of applying this model to the console realm.

Here's to goofing off at work and not having to pay for it.