Battlefield developer DICE learned several lessons from its first significant foray into console gaming with last year's Battlefield: Bad Company, not the least important of which was to never underestimate the skill level of console gamers.
"I think one of our biggest mistakes with Battlefield: Bad Company.. was that when we started making it, laying out the plans, the view on the gamer was that it's a console audience, and we need to treat them a bit more gently, since they're less experienced," said DICE creative director Lars Gustavsson to GamesIndustry.biz.
Gustavsson had been with the company since the first Battlefield title, and admitted to coming to the console project with a seriously biased opinion:
"For a very long time I think the PC audience was seen as the hardcore, the most competitive and dedicated audience," he said. "Maybe at one time that was partially true, but now we definitely see a fanatic shooter audience on console."
"When we shipped [Bad Company].. the audience had grown, matured, played more online," he added. DICE is taking this lesson into consideration when designing the sequel, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, which is due for a winter 2009 release on the Xbox 360.
"Now, looking at our console audience, we just had this discussion that we should more or less handle them on equal terms," said Gustavsson. "A lot of PC players like me have become old farts, with children at home, and it's harder to find the time to sit in front of the PC. Therefore, when they find a good shooter title they'll expect more or less the same possibilities when they fight it out in a console game as they would in a Battlefield PC title."
[SOURCE]
