Electronic Artsis doing a lot of things right when it comes toBattlefield 6. After the massive failure ofBattlefield 2042, it felt like the franchise had nowhere left to go. It felt laughably outdated in the current live service landscape, andDICEseemingly didn’t understand why we fell in love with this first-person shooter to begin with.
Its obsession with overcomplicated gameplay mechanics and a futuristic setting, which many thought broached too far into a technically advanced future, left people feeling alienated, and that’s without mentioning the litany of bugs and glitches or its desperation to work within an ever-growing live service ecosystem. It wasn’t very good, so people didn’t show up.
Now we’ve been granted a more in-depth look at Battlefield 6 before it launches later this year, it’s clear that audiences want to see a back-to-basics approach. They want to team up with friends, jump into vehicles, and cause as much destruction as possible across massively ambitious maps. It seems to provide all that in spades, but I implore you, even if you’re excited about this new game,proceed with caution.
I understand the logic behind wanting to pre-order a video game if you’re excited about it. Once upon a time, before the widespread availability of digital products, it was also the only way to secure a copy. It could go out of stock if demand was too high, and you’d risk missing out, so pre-ordering was seen as both a declaration of excitement and a security blanket. But those days are long behind us, and now, voting with your wallet is far more plausible than it used to be. When it comes to Battlefield 6, pre-ordering a copy isn’t something anyone needs to do.
There is also the FOMO associated with pre-ordering special and collector’s editions of new titles. This name alone indicates that if you don’t act, you’re going to end up missing out.
Why do developers and publishers like to encourage consumers to pre-order games? Well, it gives them a rough idea of sales projections and what it could reasonably prepare for, and to give shareholders and executives a big sexy number to boast about on their spreadsheets. I don’t think there is any reasonable benefit, beyond half-baked downloadable content, when it comes to pre-ordering in the modern day.
Do yourself a favour and don’t fall for EA’s clever marketing plans, which aim to paint it as the saviour of the franchise it is fully responsible for destroying. Yes, it looks good and is learning from its mistakes, but it’s still going to be here once the October launch has passed us by.
It will also retail at $70instead of adopting the higher price point that Mario Kart World is pushing for. More and more corporations, like Xbox and Take-Two, are starting to butt heads with this potential asking price, realising that consumers will inevitably turn against them or refuse to buy their games as a consequence. Battlefield 6 needs to compete with Call of Duty, Fortnite, and an extensive roster of other live service titles, so raising the price out of sheer greed is an awful idea, no matter how you slice it. But that won’t stop them from charging for additional content and other goodies in the future once your foot is in the door.
In Fact, The Whole Practice Of Pre-Ordering Should Be Left Behind
When Battlefield 6 was first revealed to the world a couple of weeks ago, the livestream chat was filled with people saying ‘DON’T PRE-ORDER’ as if they wanted to start a movement in the community, to make a statement that EA would see and recognise. But this intention has since faded away, doing so the second we saw gameplay footage and got hyped about what could actually be a good Battlefield experience.
Even in the livestream, there were plenty of fans saying the opposite.
Unfortunately, gamers don’t have much conviction and appear to fold at the slightest sign of quality in triple-A blockbusters despite constantly claiming they are ruining the industry with a cavalcade of shady business practices. For decades, EA has been seen as an enemy of the people, public enemy number one, which was strangelyvoted the worst place to work across all of Americabecause gamers hated the company so much.
We wanted them to evolve just so the rest of the industry wouldn’t be afflicted with the same rotten greed, but it has, and yet here we are cheering on a new Battlefield game like there is no hypocrisy to be found.
This industry can do better, but only if gamers are willing to vote with their wallets, even if it means putting their own personal hype and excitement aside. So, do everyone a favour and don’t pre-order Battlefield 6 and pick it up once the dust has finally settled.
