EA Is Considering Free-to-Play Games After Fortnite's Success

Well they already make their full price games like free to play/pay to win games so it's not like they don't have experience in that game model

Should start with there sports games since they make billions outta ultimate team alone

The Fortnite / H1Z1 microtransactions are purely cosmetic though. I really don't see any EA game that goes free to play not putting in some form of pay to win mechanic.

Oh the horror. EA are absolutely incapable of making any game at all without trying to fleece customers. Anything f2p by them will be freemium at very best. They just can't help themselves.

@FullbringIchigo
Not trying to be argumentative, but I’ve never found cod to be pay to win. I’ve never spent a penny extra and always feel competitive. In fact I usually find the best guns, equipment and perks are the first ones available. Not really got into battlefield to have an opinion. I know it’s not cool to praise the big publishers but I’ve always found value in cod and it’s various modes. The value found will be different for everyone, but I genuinely don’t find them pay to win.

@gingerfrog it was a jab at Star Wars Battlefront 2 and how EA made a game that was in every aspect a Free to Play game but they charged you £50 for it

I haven't played an EA game in years and I guess I won't play for many more to come.

@FullbringIchigo Nice first post, I've been making that argument for years, that probably a lot of people who complain about free-to-play mobile games being garbage are all too happy to pay $60 for a game and $50 for a day 1 season pass. I've been calling them $60-to-start for awhile now. The last SSB had about $100 of DLC, and $400 worth of amiibo to play alongside. FFXV had a $20 season pass, plus $15 Royal Edition, now another season pass next year. Several games have had second season passes lately. But mention "free-to-play" and people start freaking out.

It's as if everybody forgot the original Doom in the 90's - still have my floppy discs - brought the whole shareware scene to the masses. Get the first part of the game for free, then buy the rest. Technically free-to-start isn't the same as free-to-start but it's close enough, and 25 years old.

The logical step would be to make something like Battlefield V (not necessarily this game) with a 'free 2 play' Battle Royale mode for 'everyone' and for those that buy the base game, they get the SP Campaign and MP too. They 'could' give you a 'premium' Battle Royale experience if you buy the game with a certain amount of 'free' skins, characters etc. No doubt they would sell those as Micro-transactions to the F2P players or maybe 'could' sell a 'premium' BR upgrade for those that don't buy the base game.

By doing that, they may encourage some who enjoy the BR to purchase the full game but at the very least, it may mean that the BR mode is well populated. Its no 'additional' work in that they are taking away some 'developers' to make a F2P game as DICE (for example) are making BR for the release of BF5 anyway. They can 'split' that off, use the same lobbies etc and use it as a F2P mode. Its not 'Pay to Win' either and that those with the base game or those who pay for 'premium' for example would still have to find the same weapons scattered over the map - just maybe have more characters, skins, weapon camo's etc to customise their characters more.

By doing something like this with a full retail release like Battlefield, EA 'could' take out a lot of the micro-transactional stuff from that full retail release and keep that for just the F2P or even 'just' the BR mode - sell some 'special' character/customisable option to ALL - not just the F2P players. Then the retail games MP side for example could be totally free of Micro-transactions.

@gingerfrog CoD maybe isn't pay to win but it is very close to being that way. BO3 for example was very close because of the additional weapons they had - although technically you could get them from playing - eventually if you kept grinding and grinding for the 'free loot crates'. The system has been revised since but you still had to grind to get the 'best' versions that could be bought too. What really annoys more about CoD lately is that they are still having paid DLC and still having RNG Micro-transactions.

Games like Battlefront 2 did actually do something right, at least all the DLC maps were free - even if the application of Micro-transactions were 'wrong'. If the micro-transactions had been purely cosmetic, without locking characters, skill cards etc behind a paywall like they did at the start, no one would have made a fuss about micro transactions in that game especially as they were getting all maps etc free....

@BAMozzy
I actually kinda agree with you on black ops 3. But as I generally only play hardcore modes, this didn’t affect me.

I'm sure the antonym for the word "free" is EA...

The most important question is, will it have mtx, lootbox, season pass, special edition and others

I would be more impressed if they released a triple A game because then it'd be out of their comfort zone.

Titanfall then will be free to play soon since after I can expect 3 to be released during a crap window between COD and BF like 2 was, and EA will then say "oh it didn't sell well" good bye Respawn Entertainment, Merged with the mutant that already has Bullfrog as a 3rd eye and Pandemic as a 2nd head. But since it had cosmetics in 2 I reckon it will be one game that we will see F2P

Even more of this crap... 😑 🤢🤮
Its o so funny that people say that free to play are really free in the end you pay through your nose for every small extra.

EA have the rights of Star Wars and they are not capable of making a proper single-player game, what a waste.
Soon they will create a f2p Star Wars battle royale.

@gingerfrog I only play Hardcore too but the principal is still wrong as Hardcore is only a small fraction of the game. All weapons, regardless, should be available to ALL. The only thing that is (barely) acceptable is cosmetic differences - and by that I mean nothing that changes any of the stats. I even think those that give a bonus 10% XP or something like that is right on the limit of Pay to Win too as they can help you rank up faster and unlock gear sooner too...

This makes me smile. No way will EA go free to play on any of their major franchises when any of their games costs a £100 for all their content.

Nah...EA did some good games already, only the microtransations brought them down! If they go f2p just for the fact that Fortnite is successful they can easily end up with just another battle royale that ends up dead!
Unless they make BF5 battle royale free

Is it the free to play element of Fortnite which makes it a success? Or could it be the actual creative genius of shooting, looting and building? It's cartoon style graphics? And it's accessibility to young people, etc? Whereas Battlefield is more about military violence and realism, photo realistic graphics, mature and is typically more simulation and technical?

undoutedly, but i doubt any of them will capture the same massive popularity of fortnite. every once in a while a particular game seems to be able to capture the zeitgeist that many try to follow but never quite succeed to the same level. like minecraft.. no game similar to minecraft is going to reach anything like its success. i suspect it'll be the same for fortnite. a phrase about leprechauns and pots of gold springs to mind.

These type of games can be a goldmine, so it's not surprising that we see more and more publishers and bigger developers try this thing out. Even if they only manage to capture the masses' attention for a month or so, they will still earn loads of money from it; even short-term popularity can be highly profitable.

@leucocyte It looks to me that the majority of the people who play these games get tired of them very quickly though, so they are always looking for the next 'big thing'. In other words, I consider this group of gamers to be very fickle; they constantly move from one mega-hyped-up game to the next. I don't think the nature of the game even matters, it's the "popularity drive/push" that makes the games explode the way they do.

god no if anything like there begging on street mobile games god no. Worse than big issue sellers and bloody Romanian roma.

I'd settle for free FIFA every year, especially as I only play offline anyway! At the very least they could sell an offline only version for half the price. They could then do a FUT version as free-to-play. Konami do something similar with PES. They have a limited MyClub version for free.