EA Considers Player Compensation For Early Battlefield 3 Issues
If you were one of the players to pre-order Battlefield 3 and play it during the first week you experienced the instability and jitteriness of EA’s first server setup. Many people let EA know how they felt about this instability any way they possibly could saying things like, “Why didn’t you guys have more servers? Why weren’t you ready?”. EA explained that the problems, mostly dealing with playing with friends as well as server disconnects, couldn’t have been anticipated perfectly. The gaming company says they did their best to anticipate and plan accordingly, but it seems that they had some kinks in the line they needed to iron out.
“Though the first day of launch was somewhat volatile, we are happy to report that server support stabilized to roughly 98.9% through our launch weekend and has not dropped since. That said, we will not rest until we’re at 100%. We are committed to supporting the game as a software service, and listening to consumer feedback every day,” Soderlund said. “We are making daily updates and improvements to ensure an optimal online experience for all. Regardless of the cause or platform, our team at DICE and our Online teams are working together, standing by to identify the issues and addressing them as they arise. Every big multiplayer game experiences some instability at launch. The good news is, we’re listening, responding and improving the service every day.”
This kind of problem takes time to work out and there is no easy quick fix. Tons of money has to be thrown into the fix and no company will throw money into something without doing some research. This research takes a little bit of time.
“There are a number of different factors impacting server connectivity. It isn’t just about buying more servers. Capacity isn’t the only factor. Server architecture, data centers, data transfer — it all makes for an extraordinarily complex system that becomes increasingly intricate as we grow from supporting 1M players to 3M players to 5M players and beyond. That is why we continue to invest in servers, infrastructure and people to support the game,” Soderlund said. “We are dedicated to constantly improving connectivity.”
Soderlund and the rest of the folks over at EA and DICE are pledging that this game has their hearts and their heads. They will continue to put the love into this game that it deserves. They are here for the long run. Since players had to deal with such an unstable launch, EA is considering giving players a little gift.
“We are always looking at ways to generate customer satisfaction and we’re definitely considering a gift to thank players for their patience and dedication, but our #1 road to their happiness is to get everyone playing smoothly and ensure 100% stability,” Soderlund said. “We are gamers too and we understand that no gift will match the experience of getting in the game and playing with friends.”
