Bad Company Interview: Jamie Keen

BT: Now, you’ve just come out of beta and you mentioned that you’ll be bringing Conquest mode back as free downloadable content, but what other sorts of feedback did you get from players exactly?

JK: Yeah, the beta was a really good experience for us in that respect in terms of the sheer amount of feedback we got from players. We’re looking at all the forums and so on and there’s a whole host of things that have come up. We’re looking to catch as many of those things as we can – lots of gameplay tweaks, damage tweaks. Upping the graphics, tweaking the physics, fixing bugs and loads of little things to try and make sure the end experience is what people want to play.

BT: Ok. What next? Ah – premium content.

JK: <groan>

BT: You’re sick of talking about this, I bet. But it was kind of a gutsy thing to do, you have to admit.

JK: <sigh> Yeah.


BT: So, I guess – why did you try to do it? And why with this game especially?

JK: Yeah, so…I think the thing that people need to remember is that development costs on games these days are huge. So we always need to look at new revenue streams. It’s not just a question of trying to rip people off and it’s not just us trying to put one over on people – we genuinely need to y’know…well, at the end of the day it’s a business, right? We have to recoup costs and we have to make money.

So, there are those kinds of things happening. You’ll probably see more of that in the years to come. We’ve got nothing more planned at the moment, we’ve listened to the customers and the community is really important to us. We really want to maintain that two-way dialogue with our fans.

So, we’re not going to be doing anything – I mean, we’re giving Conquest away as free downloadable content later on. The weapons are now going to be free – we just hope that the fans see that we’re listening to them.

BT: So, you say all weapons are going to be free, but there’s this FindAllFive promotion going on too – can you tell us how that works?

JK: The FindAllFive program is that you go online and you sign up for a few bits and pieces here and there. For example, you might put your gaming stats on your webpage or subscribe to our newsletter and then you’ll get a code so you can on Xbox Live and download a free weapon.

Later on we’ll probably release them all and make them totally open and free to use so that people who don’t want to sign in on the program don’t miss out completely, but there’ll be a window for people who really want those weapons.


BT: So, are you worried that if someone’s got a weapons that another person doesn’t have then they’ll have an advantage over everyone else? Won’t there be balancing problems there?

JK: Well, we’ve tried really very hard from the outset with all the weapon unlocks to make sure that they are all balanced and that they work together. We’ve play tested extensively. They all have different features, but at the end of the day certain weapons always have advantages of others. There are always drawbacks and weaknesses.

BT: Nobody’s going to have a golden gun then that can defeat everything?

JK: Certainly not. Balance is critical for a Battlefield game and is something we focus on extensively. It’s what we’ve done in the past with all the Battlefield titles, so we want to make sure we have the same thing here.

BT: Did you anticipate a huge outcry about the weapons?

JK: To be honest, that’s why we run things like betas to find things out.

BT: And…well. Some cynical people might say that the whole thing was planned for publicity. Not me, honestly, but like Manhunt 2 was seen to thrive off the publicity, you might have planned something similar.

JK: <laughs> But you aren’t saying this right?

BT: Definitely not me, really.

JK: Ha, to be honest, I wish we had the forethought for that. We didn’t think of it that way, it was just something we wanted to try.