DICE not a 'Battlefield factory,' says EA

EA Games vice president Patrick Sonderlund claims that the company moves people at its studios to keep them fresh, citing DICE as an example. A former EA manager claims that Mirror's Edge 2 is among the projects in development at the studio.

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Battlefield 3 is one of EA's biggest franchises, and the one it used to take on the Call of Duty series most directly. But DICE is a large studio, and the publisher has claimed it's taking careful steps not to tie the developer down to one franchise.

"The DICE guys are roughly 300 people in the Stockholm studio," EA Games VP Patrick Soderlund told OXM UK. "Not all of them are working on Battlefield things, and that's intentional, because we don't want to become a Battlefield factory"

He suggested that employees can get bored with repeated franchises, so the company moves people around. "The minute we start saying 'you're going to make a Battlefield game for the rest of your life', they're going to go some place else," he said. "So for them to make great Battlefield games there need to be other things for them to do as well."

Sonderland didn't mention what those other projects might be, but a former EA boss claims it's a much-anticipated sequel. "It is general knowledge in the Stockholm dev scene that Mirror's Edge 2 is in production at DICE," said ex-EA Easy studio general manager Ben Cousins. This is second-hand information, though, so take it with at least a few grains of salt.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    November 21, 2012 8:15 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, DICE not a 'Battlefield factory,' says EA.

    EA Games vice president Patrick Sonderlund claims that the company moves people at its studios to keep them fresh, citing DICE as an example. A former EA manager claims that Mirror's Edge 2 is among the projects in development at the studio.

    • reply
      November 21, 2012 8:32 AM

      Based on the speed they put out patches for BF3 when it came out - I'd never accuse them of being a BF factory.

      • reply
        November 21, 2012 9:44 AM

        BF3 made by hand from scratch artisans who are proud of their patch craft?

    • reply
      November 21, 2012 8:36 AM

      Mirror's Edge 2 + Frostbite = on my face plz

    • reply
      November 21, 2012 9:53 AM

      Yes

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      November 21, 2012 12:33 PM

      I hereby call BULLSHIT on EA's line.

      They're already working on BF4 (dem comments regarding Frostbyte 2 8o )...

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        November 21, 2012 5:56 PM

        Congratulations on failing at reading comprehension.

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        November 21, 2012 6:17 PM

        I suppose the EA line is true when you consider that DICE is kind of morphing in to a Engine company. The Frostbite engine is being licensed and used internally on number of new games.

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      November 21, 2012 1:58 PM

      I used to think otherwise but I agree that DICE won't become the CoD competitor. If it were the case BF4 would be a 2012 release, it's going to be early 2014. In regards to the DLC, look at it this way: we also had DLC from DICE since 1942, but compare the quality of Armored Kill with that of Secret Weapons of WWII, Armored Kill is much better. You can get all DLC for BF3 for $50 and it's a better deal than we got for the micro expansions of the old Battlefield games.

      The one problem I have is that every game on PC is $60 even though EA doesn't have to pay a dime to Microsoft.

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