Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 left an inch-deep bootprint on video gaming’s biggest retail month, and dominated most measures the popular press use to designate big-game-itude. Yet Peter Moore, the Electronic Arts chief operating officer, is insisting his label’s Battlefield 3 drew blood from the year’s biggest commercial release.
“I think when the dust fully settles, maybe when we’re looking at the end of our fiscal year, we’ll do an analysis and I think we will have taken [market] share,” Moore told MCV. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that, unless everything BF3 sells is just incremental.”
Moore also suggested that the Battlefield — Modern Warfare rivalry benefitted “gamers and the industry,” so he may be offering a deeper meaning than the usual zero-sum calculation. Maybe the market grew. Maybe Battlefield took more of that market. Maybe a bunch of people bought both Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3, considering the first came out two weeks before the second, who knows.
I just know that we’re due for annual releases of both series from now until who knows when, both published by companies with unearthly resources, so no matter what happened or happened this year, it’s not settled.
EA: Battlefield 3 stole market share from Modern Warfare 3 [MCV]
George
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:23 PMBF3 certainly won me over. I’ve been a COD player since COD2, but this year’s rehashed MW3 was enough for me to jump ship BACK to the BF series. I played BF2 on PC years ago so I didn’t jump into the game COD-style thankfully.
I’m a little afraid EA might want to make BF a yearly thing, which I hope not…
Pioneer
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:26 PMI don’t see the point in making Battlefield an annual thing. They’re not going to be making Frostbite 3, the single player won’t be worth it so they may as well just keep releasing maps and updates and expansions.
spizzaza
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 6:02 PMbut you reckon cod should be annual? because they change their engine, core mechanics, have great single player and dont just make small changes and add maps?
neither games should be annual releases. its pointless and just milking the market. i dont believe ea/dice are planning on making battfield a yearly title.
on a separate note, i own both mw3 and bf3 and im just over cod. same shit all over again – been there done that. played a couple of sessions of cod and just find it boring. bf3 definitely won me over
Pioneer
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 6:19 PMI never said CoD should be annual, the article was about Battlefield but I agree CoD is mostly a full priced expansion pack.
giort08
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 10:59 PMGive it time, battlefield will become a yearly franchise too…either that or a bi-yearly release with medal of honour
blaja
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:28 PMfor more info on this just go to http://www.todayfpsareforgays.com
yrrnn
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:33 PMI really hope it doesn’t become an annual thing. That’s what killed COD for me. I couldn’t be bothered to invest so much time levelling up and unlocking everything if another game is just going to come out the next year that people are going to migrate to. I much prefer playing one good game for a significant amount of time, and having new map packs and patches to change things up a little when I get bored.
Hell, if DICE decide to start releasing all of the classic BF1942 maps one by one for BF3, as much as I hate paid DLC I will buy each and every one of them.
sharmona
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:05 PMbocage and stalingrad please
Chemenski
Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 7:21 AMHate DLC also, but for this game it’s worth it IMO.
Freeze S. Preston Icequire
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:41 PMWhy do people keep saying they hope battlefield doesn’t become a annual release when there have been 10 distinct battlefield games in 9 years?
Andy
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 6:28 PMi think they are referring to not releasing the same game with just different guns and maps. cod4, waw, mw2, blops and now mw3 have all been pretty much exactly the same experience. sure waw played slightly different with more bolt actions but smg run and gun was still the name of the game.
Eduardo
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:05 PMIn terms of consoles, I did switch from CoD to the BF series. So it’s true in my case. I loved the Michael Bay sploshuns and over the top killstreaks in MW2 but I couldn’t be bothered with it again….
Let’s hope that the BF series doesn’t do the same thing. I think they’ve done it right with having fairly different styles of games but still stayed true to the franchise.
Anyway tl;dr, I got bored of the cut n paste style of CoD, and I don’t want the BF franchise to do the same.
jellyarrow
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:29 PMIt’s the better game out of the two. No contest in my mind.
gaz
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:53 PMAs much as I love the battlefield series. People have to remember that back in the day, battlefield was releasing a game every year. 1943 next year, vietnam, next year bf2, next year 2142.
Dice will probably have to release something every year. But it won’t be battlefield. Next year itd be medal of honor (as they will probably help out the mp again I think)
SOX
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:55 PMDidn’t MW3 top BLOPS records from last year? How does BF3 take a piece when COD’s pie didn’t get any smaller?
Boomzzilla
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:59 PMYeah exactly what I was thinking, I think it created it’s own market and people like me who bought it were never gonna buy MW3 anyway.
spizzaza
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 6:05 PMwell if the gaming market grew, it is still possible for bf3 to have reduced mw3s sales. however because the market grew, mw3 still managed to beat last years record.
also many people bought both, but have preference to one title (like myself, i bought mw3 but dont play it and dont like it – most definitely my last cod purchase)
the effects might not be apparent straight away, but bf3 definitely hurt mw3.
SOX
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 6:37 PMI’m going to call it now and say that Black Ops 2 tops MW3 next year. After that who knows,
Milton
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 6:38 PMThe funny thing, i’ve got a feeling that a decent part of those gamers that bought cod also bought bf3 as well. If fps’s float your boat, why not get both? as the sort of angle I’m thinking. So is it really taking market share? or are they literally ‘sharing’?
Milton
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 6:39 PM*the funny thing is that
Pakka
Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 12:11 PMExactly what I did anyway. This article is a bit of bull really.
The market grew, yes, it did last and the year before that. I think a previous comment was right that it created it’s own market really.
MW3 broke sales records – that alone proved it to not have lost any steam due to B3. Unless they could have broken it by more – they still broke SALES records which is the important factor here, numbers. I’m sure EA wouldn’t give a crap if their gamers played B3 for a month and tossed it away, as long as they got the numbers. That’s all they seem to care about and go on about these days.
effektd
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 6:47 PMWell I was always going to get BF3, being a vet from 1942 (the game..) and loving everything (never played first iteration of bad company). I still bought MW3 for the sheer point of owning it and playing with friends.
I’m happy to report I only clocked 10hrs on CoD and stop bothering, I’ve also converted several CoD players to BF3 and they are extremely satisfied with the change.
While it might not be fairly evident sales wise that BF3 has taken a piece, more and more are migrating.
CS: GO might change things…MIGHT!
klanky
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 7:14 PMBattlefield isn’t a yearly series, DICE puts TIME into there games!
N0NEoftheAB0VE
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 7:39 PMThey’re not doing annual Battlefield games – they’ll alternate it with Medal of Honor.
I have a lot of xbox live friends from various sources but unlike the relatively widespread MW3 I’m baffled that it’s only my brothers and real life friends (and me) that play BF3, not that there’s any shortage of people to play with – but a lot of people who played Bad Company 2 (regularly) didn’t upgrade (unless they just jumped to PC!)
Trex
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 7:40 PMPretty sure we’ll be getting a new Medal of Honour next year not a new Battlefield game.
Andrew
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 8:11 PMFor the record i bought and enjoy them both
Wayno@War
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 11:08 PMOnly to be expected really. After tiring of CoD around MW2 Battlefield is the only FPS I really play. It is just a better presented and more fun to play then it’s competition.
I bet there are a lot of CoD fans who’ve jumped ship since Black Ops. Know a few myself. Cod can be a yearly regurgitation if it wants. Battlefield can survive on it’s gameplay alone imo.
There’s no doubt Battlefield 3 could survive a good 2 – 3 year stint provided there is fresh and substantial content. I was still playing BC2 up until this release.
Chazz
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 11:36 PMEA, trying to stay optimistic. Good on ‘em. Best way to recover from the thrashing MW3 gave BC3.
AkIRA
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 11:43 PMI own MW3 but I have not completed the single player and have not progressed to level 2 in MP. After playing BF3 I just can not stand it. Having said that, I haven’t finished BF3 campaign, but have been smashing Multi since release.
Chemenski
Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 7:30 AMI’m in the same boat. Bought both; Play BF3 regularly; Barely touched MW3. Know which title I’m going to get next.
MrTeriyaki
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 11:55 PMEveryone so far that i know who has bf3 also got mw3.
boxanata
Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 4:10 AMIf EA/DICE start selling BF titles annually, then I will lose all faith in DICE & stop buying any BF games.
Wana
Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 9:58 AMOkay, so BF3′s singleplayer wasn’t the worst thing ever created, but it was still pretty terrible. Honestly, quick-time-events shouldn’t be tossed around combat like candy. And having AI that will only return fire (stupid Dmitri, blocking my way) if you run out and spray some bullets first is idiotic.
At least the Multiplayer was passable, if generally laggy.