An EA employee’s tweet was enough to anger many Battlefield fans. Insider Tom Henderson and a streamer also joined in the discussion.
Around the Christmas holidays and New Year’s Eve, the mills grind a little slower in many places. In the games industry, too, many studios use the time between the years to send their staff on a well-deserved holiday. After all, it was not just yesterday that it became known that the workload can be very high, especially shortly before the launch of a game.
Developer DICE has also decided to give the team behind Battlefield 2042 some time off. But since the shooter has been struggling with all kinds of problems since its launch, fans continued to voice their wishes and demands for improvements to the game loudly on social media during the holidays.
EA’s (warning, long title) Global Director of Integrated Communications for Shooter and Star Wars (Andy McNamara) saw these fan posts after he returned to the office at the start of the year – and caused displeasure among many with his response.
Simple tweet causes fan criticism
What happened? Andy McNamara put out a series of tweets in which, among other things, he called fans’ expectations brutal with the end-of-year holidays in mind. But in them he also holds out the prospect of innovations.
According to him, they have things in the pipeline, but don’t want to rush anything and are only 100 per cent done with it. The changes requested by the fans would take time for planning and implementation.
But by then the damage was done and the criticism was raining down on him. Tom Henderson, known for his insider info, and popular Battlefield streamer Flakfire also joined in the discussion with statements of their own.
Both of them were in the same room.
Both sides have their arguments
Reading through the replies to McNamara’s tweets, one has to wade through some unreflective and emotionally charged statements, but also finds justified points of criticism.
Above all, the obviously premature launch of Battlefield 2042 is criticised. The tenor of the community: if the multiplayer shooter had been launched in a better state, the calls for improvements over the holidays would at least have been quieter and tempers would have been calmer.
If you don’t have a product that works properly for the launch day you can’t sell that product, specially with software, trying to justify their rush on releasing the game the soonest possible without giving the proper time
joji my nibba (@shiba_ojeroso) January 6, 2022
This user also blows the same horn, who, in view of the technically bumpy first few months, is particularly annoyed by the full price of 60 euros:
Man…
Who set this new standard? Devs are releasing games in pre-alpha state then are mad when we demand you to fix a broken product. Wasn’t like this before. But now we have reached the lowest point, this game is FAAAR from complete, and you charge 60€ for it.shifta (@sh1ftaz) January 6, 2022
Tom Henderson, who is best known for his insider info on Battlefield but also Call of Duty, also joined the discussion and tried to play a kind of mediator role.
I don’t think communication over the holidays was necessarily the problem. But it did feel like the tweets posted throughout the holidays were scheduled 3 months ago with the intention the game would be doing well or whatever. I think everyone understands people (cont)
Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) January 6, 2022
He suspects that for most fans the developer holiday is not the problem, but rather the tweets of the (official Battlefield channel). They read as if they had already been planned months ago, assuming that the game would have a successful and problem-free launch.
Flakfire, a streamer active on YouTube and Twitch, simply gave Andy McNamara one simple piece of advice: delete the tweets so as not to inflame tempers even more. And that’s exactly what McNamara did shortly afterwards. He also sent out a short apology tweet:
Deleted the tweets. Seems my message wasn’t clear. Apologies.
Andy McNamara (@TheRealAndyMc) January 6, 2022
What does the future of Battlefield 2042 look like?
At the beginning of the year 2022, the big question is: What does the short and medium-term future of Battlefield 2042 look like? Will the multiplayer shooter make a comeback after all, or are we really dealing with the first flop in the series’ long history?
Apart from the first patches, DICE also listened to the often expressed wish of the community before Christmas and halved the player numbers – a change that was very well received.
What is your relationship to Battlefield 2042? Will you give the shooter another chance if DICE fixes the biggest problems this year or have you already finished with the title and looked for alternatives? Feel free to leave us a comment
