Everything begins with small, and this story began in the nineties in the south of Sweden, in one of the houses of a small provincial town Veverk. It got dark. Five students sat in the room and were engaged in unusual business – they came up with the name for the office.
Not that they were seriously going to create some kind of company. Just in their free time they wrote computer programs and were not averse to selling them to someone. And selling games on behalf of five adolescents with intricate Scandinavian names who did not even graduate from the university is unsolvable. So the name was needed. Disputes went all night. Finally, fatigue and desire to sleep, the debaters made more accommodating, and they agreed on the name Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment. Abbreviated – Dice.
► Stockholm headquarters Dice. It is here that the last ten years in the crucible code of the program code, the future of Battlefield boils. Photo: B2WIKI
Battlefield – Russia
Contrary to common opinion, Battlefield 1942 did not appear out of nowhere. There was no man who, waking up early in the morning, suddenly thought – tired of science fiction, tired of all these Doom And Quake , And let's make a steep network shooter better about the second world, with tanks and aircraft!
Moreover, this formula was not even invented in the Dice studio. It all started much earlier.
Several games were released in Dice, and then the team realized that their hobby turned into a good business. In 1994, the developers accumulated enough to rent an office, and turned into a real company. Pinbole simulators made, different arcades, then switched to the races and released a successful Motorhead. The time is golden, the industry grew like yeast, and serious orders began to come to DICE. In an effort to expand the business, the office bought a couple of small studios. The merits of the first of them, Sandbox Studios , History has not preserved. But the second deal became truly fateful.
► Today Codename Eagle graphics look unpresentable, but fans have made Codename Eagle: Legends, adding to Battlefield 2 cards, technology and weapons of the famous ancestor.
Dice went to meet the same group of Swedish students from the studio Refraction Games. But they, unlike Dice, were little worried about Pinbole simulators. Immediately before buying, they finished their most grandiose project – shooter Codename Eagle , Epic story about alternative steampunk Russia of the twenties. In the world of the game of the October Revolution, the power was captured by the crazy general, Russia waged war with Europe, and the fugitive prince in the role of Superigent tried to return the throne to Princess Anastasia.
However, the most interesting thing was waiting for players in multiplayer. Refractor 1 branded engine supported gigantic (at that time) maps where you can arrange full -scale battles with the participation of technology. There were zeppelins, auto fats, bombers and fighters. Flamethrowers, motorcycles with strollers, armored cars and trucks. Aircraft carriers, cruisers and boats. And, of course, infantry.
Codename Eagle was eventually sold in a circulation of only 20 thousand copies, but made a revolution in the genre of network shooters. Speaking briefly, it was Battlefield, the one that we know today. In network fights, a dashing driver of an armored car after a jump from a cliff came across an airplane. The tank managed to knock down a bomber diving on him – the very madness for which they play Battlefield.
Dice immediately understood what wealth fell into their hands. Having adopted the Refractor 1 engine and detaching a team of specialists to help the developers of Codename Eagle, they began to create a legend.
Fire on the Nazis!
► DICE money allowed to turn around: in Battlefield 1942 there was a breathtaking amount of content. And with additions there are even more. Who to pour jet aircraft?
The whole industry considered Battlefield 1942 a revelation, and only fans of Codename Eagle understood that the new game was almost a remake, except that the setting changed. The same engine, the same gameplay formula. Even deliberately complex management of aircraft, well -known and current fans of the series, took it from there. However, friends with Codename Eagle ran around the expanses of Battlefield 1942 with bulging eyes at least the rest. It was no longer a student project, but a game of the highest class.
Battlefield 1942 made a pair of seemingly not too serious innovations – control points and division of infantry into classes. If earlier everyone fought individually, now the command work has appeared in Gameplay, moreover, without any coercion, – the very logic of the battle pushed the players to joint actions. Do you want to have support nearby? Lychi fallen fighters. If you want to take a point? Help the capture group.
I would like to write that the success was phenomenal … but only from the point of view of influence on the game industry and the fragile minds of prehistoric players. From a commercial point of view, 2.5 million copies sold can be considered a very successful, but far from a phenomenal project. It was far from such hits as Need for Speed, collecting millions of millions per circle.
Which is understandable: the network game in 2002 collected a small audience.
But for Dice, this is still a success. More than 600 thousand copies of additions were added to 2.5 million copies of the main game Battlefield 1942: The Road to Rome , then another half a million copies Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of Wwii , and then all the above sold again with a circulation of 400 thousand copies under the guise of a final publication. It seems that the developers of the game introduced himself as a kind of machine printing money.
If the studio assortment was quite wide before the Battlefield – from races to the Cartoon “Shrek”, then in the entire subsequent story they released only one game not about the war. It was called Mirror’s Edge. Formally still terribly unsuccessful reboot Medal of Honor , But she does not count, since the participation of Dice in its creation was very limited.
Vietnamese syndrome
► Players positively relate to the release of continuation like Battlefield Vietnam. There is only one “but”: this is true only for plot games. From the continuation of the multiplayer game await something more than a change of scenery.
Dice had already anticipated how the second Battlefield would make on the updated Refractor engine and will be added again. Just working on the project for too long, and so that the players did not get bored idle, it was decided to take them with addition to Bf 1942.
The game is called Battlefield Vietnam and is still considered one of the worst in the series. Compared to the predecessor, sales have almost doubled, and additions to the game were not produced at all. Taking advantage of the case, the studio ran a new chip on the BF Vietnam, the asymmetric balance of the parties: the Americans received powerful equipment, and Koreans – strong infantry with anti -tank and anti -aircraft means. The experiment was probably recognized as unsuccessful, because in all subsequent games the studio adhered to a relatively symmetrical balance.
It was then, in 2004, in the life of Dice, large changes took place. Publisher Electronic Arts And before, the studio was tightly controlled, and now he decided to take the developers for an even shorter pack. With the approval of the board of directors of DICE "Electronics" began to actively buy up shares and soon already owned a control package at a ridiculous price of $ 23 million. To completely redeem the studio from the market and turn it into your unit, it will take another one and a half years. But even then, in 2004, EA turned into the new owner of the Swedish studio, and its founders, yesterday's students, became rich people and went about their business.
The team has seriously expanded, and the main composition of DICE from Gotharg was transported to Stockholm, where the team of the former Refraction Games studio worked. Irony of Fate: Dice, who bought Refraction Games, now worked in the premises of their former office and on the project that grew out of their Codename Eagle.
Involuntarily, you ask the question: what is the role of DICE in the development of Battlefield? After all, initially the studio was known only by arcade games. Of course, you should not say that Dice with the help of money was added to the success of a talented team, its contribution to Bf 1942 is obvious. Nevertheless, it is very similar that the main ideologists of the game for a long time remained immigrants from Refraction Games, and the Dice team helped them with qualified employees, money and connections with publishers.
Battlefield number two
► in Battlefield 2: Armored Fury quite often found the number 2142 – either in the name of the technology, then in the game itself. The secret has not yet been revealed, and what the developers wanted to say by this, it is not clear.
The beginning of the two thousandth has become for developers golden time. The games are simple, almost no competition, the power of computers is growing. Do the same project with new graphics once a year or two, that's all. Battlefield 2 turned into a symbol of that era. An amazing graphic https://amigo-wins-casino.co.uk/ was attached to the ultramodular setting of modern wars.
BF2 decided to take another step towards the team game, adding the commander’s mode: now the outcome of the battle depended on the success of the player coordinating the action of all the fighters, and the seizure of points began to bring very real bonuses in the form of additional resources that fell into the disposal of the commander – he could help the team reset of ammunition, transport, intelligence and other. Captured a point with the battery of howitzers? Now your commander can request Artudar. Captured a radar? This will help with intelligence.
If earlier the organization of teamwork took place spontaneously, now everything was tied to the skills of one person. Coordinated teams with a good commander got too much advantage. This is good in e -sports, but in ordinary, casual, shootouts can irritate. Many people prefer to play without looking back at the allies.
During the first year of BF2 sales, about 2.5 million copies were dispersed, including collections and reprints of the game. And if you add a console version (very different from the PC game), then the result will exceed 4 million, and there are also add-ons that have been dispersed by a tier of more than a million. And then … then the story with Battlefield Vietnam repeated. The developers decided to quickly release another game on exactly the same technologies, only with other maps and combat units.
► Despite all the shortcomings, many recall Battlefield 2142 with warmth and would not have been so that the series return to fantastic setting again. Who knows who knows ..
There are no exact data, but, according to rumors, a fall in sales in Battlefield 2142 it was much stronger than in the case of Battlefield Vietnam. A large number of bugs and persistent popularity BF2 predetermined its failure. Around this very time, EA canceled an unusual game from the BF series for Xbox and PS2 – perhaps it was about the console version of BF 2142.
In any case, it was no longer interested in anyone. A new era began in the industry, PS3 and Xbox 360 time.
A very bad company
Next began the time of the triumph of consoles. Contain players paid a lot of money, only their tastes were specific. As a rule, they did not like to play online, and games without a story campaign did not exist for them at all. So appeared Battlefield: Bad Company – A good shooter with funny characters, an entertaining plot and a new FrostBite engine supporting the destroyed environment. Fans were delighted. Not all, because Bad Company came out only on consoles.
► We do not know who wrote the script for Bad Company, but this is definitely not Dice. Even if Dice herself says that she wrote the script, we still won't believe. It turned out too well.
► In Bad Company 2, the Americans again began to fantasize on the meeting of American marines with bad Russians. But they were far from cranberry authors Call of Duty, so the topic did not go.
Against the backdrop of universal enthusiasm about the consoles, the attitude of large publishers to the PC games market is differently difficult to name. Many still remember hysteria about the piracy that the developers rolled then. EA decided to follow fashion and divided the series into two separate branches.
For PC fans, a reservation was created in the form of a line of free online shooters, entrusting it to this case created Easy Studios. Their first job, Battlefield Heroes , I did not shoot. Having decided that the problem in cartoon design, a year later Easy Studios released Battlefield Play4free , Already in a traditional serious setting.
► Who knows what would happen if EA instead of the release of hacks of type BF Play4free would try to occupy the market for free shooters with a quality game. But not fate.
The game was so bad that many did not even spend time reviewing. In the EA, they probably shredged with his hands and with the words “Well then we don’t know at all what these PC players need!»Combined the series back, releasing Bad Company 2 both on consoles, and on PC. Bad Company dispersed about 3 million copies-not too good the result, taking into account strongly increased costs due to the presence of the story campaign. The circulation of Bad Company 2 has currently exceeded 12 million. The bad company PC players was not so bad.
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On this, our tour of the Battlefield series is ended, because with Battlefield 3 The well -known one begins to all the present. Before the release of the next number of EA series, I took into account many of its mistakes. For example, PC again made a priority platform. All achievements of PC versions should have been useful for the project for the PS4 and Xbox One coming soon.
► For all the boring of the plot, Battlefield 3 had a completely amazing atmosphere. EA clearly spent considerable funds on the game, trying to return the series to the mainstream.
► In Battlefield 4, the Americans changed the Russians, having held the Third World War with the Chinese. With the Chinese! Very disappointing. Well, now, now the Chinese people think more dangerous than us?
"Vietnamese syndrome" worked this time. If Battlefield 3 dispersed in a year in a circulation of 15 million copies, then Battlefield 4 As soon as I took a bar of 7 million. And again for the same reasons: the games are too similar, and if in two years of playing BF3 he is deadly tired of you, you are unlikely to run to buy the same thing, but with mother -of -pearl buttons. Moreover, the next attempt to stop Solo-anarchy, popular among players, spurring them to team action.
In addition, EA made an important conclusion: how cool Dice is in multiplayer battles, it is just as bad when it comes to a single campaign. When releasing a third part, everyone was tensing properly and were able to give out the plot, which at least in the commercial seemed interesting. The fourth still raised questions. And the point is not that the plot in the spirit of “brave American marines against the whole world” finally went out of fashion. Just the team's hands were imprisoned for another thing.
Well, the story does not end there. In Battlefield 1, war is waiting for us again. The most terrible and unsightly.