Battlefield 3 Takes Aim at Call of Duty
Speaking at a NY conference, EA CEO John Riccitiello said that his company would be fronting a $100M ad campaign for the title when it’s released in the fall.
This game is designed to take that game [Call of Duty] down. If you’re looking for a battle of titans, a Red Sox vs. Yankees, if you’re trying to understand whether it’s Microsoft or Google, and what the tip-off point is for this holiday season: this is it. There’ll be a couple hundred million dollars of marketing against the two products going head to head, with similar designs. We think we’ve got the better product. It’s gonna be a blast.
This might prove to be a hard task for EA. Even with Jason West and Vince Zampella leaving Activison and joining EA with half of the Infinity Ward developers, Treyarch took the reigns of COD and delivered Black Ops showing that the series is still the fastest selling video game (or any product) of all time, racking up $360M in sales in under 24 hours.
With DICE ditching the "Bad Company" style gameplay and going back to its original Battlefield gameplay roots and armed with a new engine, one thing is clear, this November will be one exciting month!