Fortnite itself was originally a base-building PVE zombie game that Epic cranked out a battle royale mode for in a couple of months after seeing that PUBG (which at the time was a janky, unpolished and presumably cheap-to-develop standalone version of an ARMA mod) was a huge success. Then after it's out, Epic restructures behind it as a cash cow, makes it into a modding platform, uses it to improve Unreal Engine, etc.
Minecraft was a little solo project in Java - now 350m copies sold. It didn't start off as a platform for other games, available on every console with cutting edge graphics and $100m in marketing spend behind it.
Ark sold 80 million copies. It was an Early Access game on Steam by a team of 35, then it took off and they ported it to everything.
Battle Royale's been done and been a huge hit for PUBG (2017), then Fortnite, then Warzone. I think it's about time that people would be getting sick of it, same as open world survival crafting games were the big thing (Minecraft, DayZ, Ark) and MMOs. Next Battlefield is $400m, all those other big hits were probably more in the $100k-$1m range. Maybe it would be better to make a bunch of $1m-$10m range games, see which one is a hit, then move resources behind it. I imagine changing the structure of a big business like EA to be able to make a move like that would be a very, very difficult undertaking though.
There are plenty of counter examples like Witcher 3, Desth Starnding, Resident Evil Village and Cyberpunk (regardless of its rocky launch)
The issue with EA and Ubisoft nowadays is that they are not run by game designers but by MBAs and HR departments. There is very little room to disagree with the mandates and if the game must have x,y,z then you need to find a way to cram it regardless.
When you kill the creativity and don’t take bold risks, you kill innovation and ultimately suck the soul out of the game.
Games are a form of art after all.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Qm6_lEdcQ&t=656s
It's incredibly difficult to pick good creative things if you don't have the same spark their actual consumers do.
Sure, maybe someone is experienced, but they'll always be looking at it through a completely different lens than consumers. Eventually that creates a blind spot and understandings diverge disastrously.
Ex: the infamous Diablo mobile game announcement
Okay sure, let's say that. I don't think it's true. I think anyone who has ever made anything creative, which is most people, know that chasing success just make your creative work bad. That doesn't matter though.
Surely the executives at EA should know better. Like it's literally their job to know better. They head an entire organization dedicated to creative production. Surely the board would fire them if they don't know better right?
What is going on?
This...
> Like it's literally their job to know better.
...does not follow from this.
And executives get where they are, at least in significant part, because they are good at telling boards what they want to hear. They are also, generally speaking, in the same class as the board members, and together they are very willing to blame failures on those darn workers just doing a bad job at stuff.
"What is going on" is that the executive class in America has been progressively getting more and more divorced from the reality of actual production, and treating their opinions and expertise as if they are somehow definitive on everything related to their domain is very dangerous.
One of my biggest issues with modern gaming, including Battlefield 2042, is the shift from community servers to matchmaking lobbies. I’ve never enjoyed lobbies, as they prioritize quick, transient matches over meaningful player interactions. Community servers allowed players to build relationships, strategize together, and create lasting memories, fostering a sense of camaraderie. Playing in lobbies feels like facing bots—there’s no human connection, and you’re unlikely to see those players again, making the experience feel empty and disconnected.
Gaming used to be my way of meeting like-minded people, and my Steam friends list is filled with players I met through Battlefield and other games. However, I haven’t added a new friend in years, as modern gaming’s focus on fast-paced, disposable matches makes it nearly impossible to form meaningful connections. I hope developers like EA return to the series’ roots, emphasizing tactical gameplay and community-driven servers to recapture the magic that made Battlefield a platform for both thrilling gameplay and lasting friendships.
A lot of people who consume games don't want to foster lasting relationships, they want to tick the box saying "played game for X hours today" and move on.
I think that's pathological and, as you say, leads to lots of knock-on toxic effects in gameplay and community.
But it is the reality this is engineered for - a lot of people who play multiplayer games do not want to feel like they're doing something with other people when doing it, which is part of why you get lots of toxic interactions or entitled complaints about something which might be a good strategy but ruins the game experience for some of the people in the match.
I put somewhere over 12k hours into BF4 alone, and I've barely touched the series since. That game had the special sauce that they've failed to capture ever since. An updated remastered Battlefield 4 would perform incredibly well; ironically, my biggest fear for it would be that EA wouldn't be able to help themselves, giving a huge budget to a massive team and completely wrecking it by doing too much.
It's really weird how much the game industry seems to despise their audience
its an endemic behavior when you recruit MBAs that are not growing from within the company. not limited to gaming at all.
As you say, at some point you can't cram more $ into the product in a way that meaningfully affects the experience. Every area eventually experiences diminishing returns, especially within the framework of a realistic-ish multiplayer shooter. There is a kind of winner-takes-all effect to digital media, but this takes it too far.
It is kindof crazy how lethargic the big publishers are. For EA: 7 years after Hollow Knight to release a metroidvania, 9 years since Stardew Valley to release a new 'cozy' title, at this rate it will be 5 more years before we see their proximity chat game in response to Lethal Company. The trends are literally rendered passé by multiple waves of indie and A/AA games before they react. You'd think having a ton of money, and a giant pool of experienced developers, they could be fast-followers at least. Seems they are content to just push money into slow, giant 'summer blockbuster' type titles though.
Edit: Totally forgot, this is all about a battle-royale title, so assuming it releases next year: 9 years after Fortnite and 6 after the CoD equivalent.
This will be Star Citizen.
At best, if it ever properly launches, you will get maybe 20 mill of game from a lot more than that.
I think we can be fairly confident that just giving a ravenous game designer an unlimited credit card doesnt translate into a better game.
Business idiots, as Ed Zitron would say.
And saying the article is trying to 'farm outrage' is extreme- it's barely an article if anything, more of a blog-post, with a matching tone, there's not exactly any call-to-action.
That isn't to say that EA doesn't suck. This 100m goal just wouldn't be among the top 100 reasons I would point to as evidence.
Deciding to set a "success" target of 100 million players and then spending upwards of $400 million USD developing one title is a recipe for studio closures and/or layoffs when it inevitably "fails" because executive leadership didn't set reasonable targets or come up with a reasonable budget. It's a big house of cards.
A more diversified portfolio of titles with more reasonable budgets would be a much safer choice, and it's how things were done successfully in the past.
Its basically blogspam
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/07/behind-the-next-battl...
How would this comparison look for the Epic games like Unreal vs. Fortnite?
