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How many failures will DICE be allowed to make before EA gets rid of them?

jakinov

Member
First of all, I'm aware that DICE doesn't make only games. Their Stockholm studio hires some 700+ people who also develop Frostbite that then goes on to be used on EA's sports games money printers. Though I don't know exactly how much of Frostbite's R&D is made by Frostbite and how much is made by SEED.

But if we check DICE's game releases for the past 4 years, we get:

- Battlefront "Surprise Mechanics" II
- Battlefield "Right Side of History" V
- Battlefield "COD Wannabe" 2042


I don't know about BFV, but I'm pretty sure Battlefront II failed to meet sales expectations according to their own earnings reports. Going by how fast BFV went on sales, I'm assuming it didn't fare too well either. And I can't see how BF2042 is ever going to meet their sales targets considering how terrible its reception is.

It just doesn't look like DICE is currently able to make successful games, so I wonder how/why EA hasn't given them the boot.
Westwood was booted after one terrible C&C4, Maxis was butchered after Sim City 2013 and turned into a smartphone game developer, Visceral got disbanded after the cancellation of project Star Wars Ragtag, etc. The list of EA's short temper on game studios is pretty long, so how come does DICE get to launch all these games and keep leading these expensive franchises?

Or am I just looking at it all wrong and their games are actually making a lot of money?
Battllefield and Battlefront didn't sell poorly. They just didn't sell high enough for the risk/money at play. Think risking a million dollars and only making 2 million instead of the 5 you hoped for; except imagine bigger numbers. You put mililions of dollars in to a game which is high risk in order to get high reward. You don't take high risk for low-moderate rewards. So when a company says doens't meet expectations it doens't mean it wasn't profitable, it just means they just litterally expected more.

In regards to why they haven't given them the boot. Its' because DICE actually still makes them money. Westwood and the ones you mentioned didn't make money. The games you shitting on will probably have over 10 million in lifetime sales. Add on season passes, ad-hoc DLC purchases and microtrasactions, we're talking even more money. It makes much more sense to refine and improve than it does to gut and destroy.
 

SSfox

Member
Dice are forced to work on BF, it's EA fault that don't let them fly with their own wings, the only time they did we got the awesome Mirror's Edge, since then Dice is just a Dev BOT that its only purpose on existence is to keep pooping BF games. Obviously what happens was obvious.
 

PJX

Member
This is the only studio I wish Microsoft had bought. Rallisport Challenge 1 & 2 are still 2 of the best racing games I have ever played.
 
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dano1

A Sheep
Ok but that doesn't support your argument either?
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Why are so many people already abandoning Halo?
 

JoeBudden

Member
Battlefield 4 and Battlefield 1 (to a much smaller degree) had bad launches too lol.

The only DICE game that had a clean launch last generation was Battlefront 1 and that was because there was so little content in the game to screw anything up.

Side note, people pretending like Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V were good BF entries is complete revisionist history. Both of those games are a step down from BF4 and started this weird trend by DICE to put less and less content out at launch in their games. Sure, they're still fun games, BF2042 is fun too, but all of these games are nowhere close to BF3 and BF4. And, you can argue those games are a step down from BF2 and BF2142. DICE's history consists of taking a winning formula and just throwing bad ideas on top of that formula for each iteration.
 
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Concern

Member
Battlefield 2: 7 million sales during the launch period, and well below EA's estimates. It also failed to bring revenue expectations due to the microtransactions bring closed for that period.
BFV: 7.3 million after 1 year, also failing to meet expectations by 1 million copies.


BF 2042 lost around half of its player base within the last 48 hours. I doubt the sales are getting traction considering the reviews and word-of-mouth / anecdotal experiences. Concurrent players have been pretty good indicator of sales numbers, at least for games of this scale.


Tbf the base will probably move on to other games but come back after a few updates. The sales don't go away tho regardless of player base leaving or not.
 

Fare thee well

Neophyte
As an old gamer I remember DICE falling apart and progressively getting worse after 2012. I wonder why.....

Oh thats right, electronic farts.
 

dano1

A Sheep
No idea what you mean?
The user base fluctuates on time of day, day of the week, etc.
You will have more people playing on a Saturday night than at 6:00 AM on a Tuesday.
Just comparing numbers on that post. The gamers playing now seems low.
 
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Kacho

Member
Look at the chart I was commenting on. The playing now was pretty low for how big the peak was. Maybe server issues?
Oh, thats pretty common. Activity for Halo seems to drop when most people in the American region are sleeping. It appears this game isn’t very popular in Russia.
 
Not gonna say I care too much about the sales numbers, nor would I advocate for EA or any other publisher shutting down studios.

But I certainly would be looking to make some changes to the studio leadership as well as the types of games EA greenlights from DICE.

Promote some fresh talent from within the team, together with bringing in outside industry veterans and put them to work on a new IP to give them a rest from the consecutive shitting out of annualized Battlefield games.

Maybe the reason the games are getting shitter is because the devs are sick and tired of only making BF. After a while, you bleed away all your talent because no one wants to spend their entire career only re-hashing out the same franchise over and over.
 

Piggoro

Member
Yes they are infact Embark Studios.



I am baffled how many that have no idea of this.
The only thing that makes me worried is that as far as I remember the head of studio is "Don't like it don't buy it" and "I made this M-rated game for my 12 -year old daughter".
 

JoeBudden

Member
While DICE has been shuffled, EA surely makes calls to meet quotas, make money, etc. I don't think EA really cares about the quality of a product, rather than hitting numbers and deadlines.

So, while the failure could be on DICE, it's probably on EA as a whole for pushing said product to release.

It's easy to blame EA, but at the same time DICE was given 3 years for this game and this is all they have to show for it? There's clearly an issue with project management and leadership within DICE.

Theres three COD teams at Activision working on 3 year cycles, and even on their worst year, they still consistently drop a game with very few technical issues, runs at least 60fps (4k* @ 120fps for this gen), and full of content with new content constantly being drip fed. Vanguard dropped with 20 maps, and is already getting new maps as of last week, plus a new Warzone map coming up, while DICE said season 1 starts in 2022.

Shit sucks cause you can't get the Battlefield experience anywhere else so you're stuck with DICE's games.
 
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recursive

Member
DICE is utterly awful. Everyone blames big bad EA for everything, but DICE was given 3 years and five studios to work on this game and they shipped this disaster. They are completely inept.

Whats shocking is that after the success of BF1 which finally helped them sell 20 million almost matching cod, they threw all that away and went back to making battlefield for the more hardcore fanbase while also pissing them off with the addition of prosthetic arms weilding female soldiers. Attrition + mechanical arms is what makes world war 2 so authentic.

When the Battlefront 2 lootbox scenario first broke, some reporters pointed out how this wasnt an EA mandate. It was DICE who designed the game that way. I think DICE has to go. I will never forgive them for what they did to operations. People loved that mode. They themselves said that it was the their most popular mode in BF1. They first removed the 40 player playlist which was far more balanced and replaced it with only a 64 player playlist which turned every game into a clusterfuck. Then they used that as an excuse to completely change it in BFV in order to 'balance' it turning it into a boring snoozefest like conquest.

They are a bunch of idiots. Shut them down.

P.S I knew they were idiots when in BF1 they were asked by the community to fix the grenade spam. Their solution: making grenades replenish automatically. Yes, their solution to fix grenade spam was to give players more grenades. I wish i was making this up.
Is attrition still in BFV?
 

SantaC

Member
Yes, they did Portal, in just a year. They always saved DICE Swedens ass. Let them take care of this series for once, just them.
I have bad news for you. A lot of key people from DICE sweden went to DICE LA around BF3 era.

The only thing that makes me worried is that as far as I remember the head of studio is "Don't like it don't buy it" and "I made this M-rated game for my 12 -year old daughter".
Dont like it dont buy was from oskar gabrielson, current CEO of DICE during BFV. You qouted the wrong person here.
 
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MiguelItUp

Member
It's easy to blame EA, but at the same time DICE was given 3 years for this game and this is all they have to show for it? There's clearly an issue with project management and leadership within DICE.

Theres three COD teams at Activision working on 3 year cycles, and even on their worst year, they still consistently drop a game with very few technical issues, runs at least 60fps (4k* @ 120fps for this gen), and full of content with new content constantly being drip fed. Vanguard dropped with 20 maps, and is already getting new maps as of last week, plus a new Warzone map coming up, while DICE said season 1 starts in 2022.

Shit sucks cause you can't get Battlefield anywhere else so you're stuck with DICE's games.
It is, because EA gets the final say on the quality of the product. That doesn't mean that DICE is picture perfect in any way, cause they're not. But DICE hasn't been the best DICE has been in awhile now. Add that with EA's business practices and it sounds gross.

While it's too frequent, I think it's impressive how fairly consistent their COD machine is. They clearly have a practice down that works, and works pretty well. Working with various studios allows even more help QA as well, so I can't even imagine the amount of QA they get on each title, but clearly a decent amount. Whereas EA/DICE feels like they could get more QA for each platform.

Yeah, I've adored BF since 1942, and it really is a shame. Even with its few issues, I'm still able to enjoy BF2042 on PC. But, it really should be better. A lot better. Especially after everything with V. It genuinely concerns me about the series' future at times.
 
I have bad news for you. A lot of key people from DICE sweden went to DICE LA around BF3 era. It is still swedens game.


Dont like it dont buy was from oskar gabrielson, current CEO of DICE during BFV. You qouted the wrong person here.
So? DICE Sweden right now, sucks. They began to suck with BFV but that game was still good, imo.
 

ggezimtheworst

Neo Member
I think more indie developers that aren't turned into big corporations will always be better because I feel they actually put work and soul into their games even knowing that not making a lot of money is a possibility. I feel getting into the Video game-making industry is very hard because there is a lot of competition out there and I feel it's as if an uphill battle the whole way. Sure, you may get a lucky break on a game but I feel the little guy joins the competition out of love for a game rather than trying to make a quick buck. Piggy Hunt is a great example of a game that started out $5 but listened to the feedback of their community and made the game free. I have a video of the game for reference.
 

ToTTenTranz

Banned
The only thing that makes me worried is that as far as I remember the head of studio is "Don't like it don't buy it" and "I made this M-rated game for my 12 -year old daughter".

The daughter statement (though I think it was an even younger daughter than that, like a 6 year-old) was made by a dev on reddit who was answering an AMA about BF:V.
 

Piggoro

Member
I have bad news for you. A lot of key people from DICE sweden went to DICE LA around BF3 era.


Dont like it dont buy was from oskar gabrielson, current CEO of DICE during BFV. You qouted the wrong person here.
Form the same guy, Soderlund. Both quotes from here
 
Barely broke 100k on Steam on launch day
Lower than Halo on launch day
Losing players faster than Halo (in the chart above the daily peak is 60% of the all time high while Halo is at 66%)
Still a console franchise in the US while Halo Infinite exploded on PC there
Legacy servers repopulating
Lowest professional (lol) reviews of the franchise
User reviews are a disaster

Somehow, they managed to bomb even harder than BFV. The game design is so rotten I don't think they can save it like they did BFV.
A console franchise BTFOing it on PC is just adding insult to the injury.
 
dont forget Star Wars Battlefront 2015. Which probably sold really well to dummies like me, who didn't know the game was gonna suck.
just a shallow dumbed down game.

Then Battlefield 1 probably sold a ton, coming off the back of the excellent BF4. And also the first time in a long time they went back to a World War era classic game. But alas, much like the Star Wars game. It was really dumbed down and shallow. And didn't have what made Battlefield great.

imo they have not made a really good game in at least 7-8 years
 
Doesnt most of EA’s games run on DICE’s engine? So never.

Every Battlefield release is just a engine update with some guns animations thrown in at this point.
 

Kerotan

Member
Unlimited failures as long as idiots keep pre-ordering and buying the same products every time.
Literally half my friends list of 200 people pre ordered bf2042. Over half pre ordered or played vanguard day 1-3. Insane take up at full price.

I bought bf2042 and don't regret it. It will get free dlc for years. And tbh I enjoy whats there already.
 
2042 is doing better than Halo Infinite on Steam, and that game is free.

They are fine, despite the bandwagon of "Battlefield is failure!".

Not remotely true at all. Battlefield is under 50k, Halo Infinite is north of 200k concurrent right now. The only time Battlefield ever appeared to briefly be in the lead was when people were sleeping or mostly at work in the U.S. by the looks of things. Have a look for yourself. This is what's happening right now.

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EDMIX

Member
Yes they are infact Embark Studios.



I am baffled how many that have no idea of this.

I am baffled how many have no idea about THIS

"EA's chief design officer Patrick Soderlund says"



"studio founded by former Battlefield developers Patrick Söderlund"

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EDMIX

Member
Yeah I actually agree with you on that. The fact that it has mostly negative reviews and is still somehow one of the top selling games on Steam right now is pretty odd.
The reviews on Steam also don't really show Battlefield justice as it's only a thumbs up or a thumbs down system. There is plenty of reasons to not recommend BF 2042 in it's current state but doesn't mean you still can't have fun with it.

I don't think its odd at all. I think the gaming community still knows a hit job when they see it and start asking questions on what the meme or joke or outrage thing is going on around the game. The more hyperbolic the comments got, the more it actually started to hurt how people even fucking saw those reviews, so people might be buying cause they likely feel either they are exaggerating something, someone's chin is a different size, female in game, someone's feelings got hurt, some PR person made a comment...the list can go on, with such dumbass takes, it means lots of gamers are use to seeing this and giving the lolz and then buying the game.

They can't take what is being stated seriously when someone is saying its a 0-10 game, yet they see footage of this.



That is what they expect from the craziness of day 1 launch BF shit. This might be having the opposite effect and causing people to look deeper into WHY are folks triggered....so when they keep looking around and finding such videos, it might lead them into more so buying then listening to some on Reddit tell em zero destruction exist




As if they are to not believe their fucking eyes or something. Would you not buy a game based on such comments after then seeing footage that shows the statement was completely false?

The fact that this game is even moving the units its moving shows that LOTS of gamers don't take a lot of that shit seriously and I blame the community. Give a real score, stop being fucking hyperbolic about everything and people are open to listen, but when you are telling someone its 0 out of 10, yet they see people having fun, it has no destruction and a guy is leveling a fucking neighborhood, it becomes hard to tell a person to not have fun, listen to reddit and don't believe your eyes or something. BF 2042 needs patches and updates, no debate there, it doesn't need such hot takes basically out right making shit up. Not everyone is going to fall for that.

Assassins Creed and Call Of Duty using this fucking logic should bomb every year, clearly folks just repeating the same 0 out of 10 are not really convincing all consumers.
 
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