EA’s Battlefield Heroes 2142 will be free

Posted on February 18, 2008
Filed Under Entertainment |

Game developer and publisher Electronic Arts has announced that they will be distributing their latest title in the Battlefield franchise for free to gamers. The company will be continuing an experiment they started in Korea when they offered FIFA soccer for free in 2006; this game has been making EA $1 million a month in sales of ads and extras. Which brings me to the business model by which a company can profit by giving something to consumers for free.

EA will monetize Battlefield Heroes 2142 by selling in-game advertising to interested parties. In other words, just as some TV is free because we have to sit and watch advertising every few minutes, the new generation of computer games will also be decorated with ads. In addition, EA will be selling weapons and armor improvements to gamers for a price. They expect that since most games are pirated and downloaded for free, if they go ahead and release the game for free in the first place, they will be one step ahead of the software pirates. They might actually be right. I just hope that the amount of advertising in the game is not intrusive. I get enough of that in real life; I play games because I want to escape reality. Are you listening EA?

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