Okay, I know that many of you folks could give less than over 9000 shits about anything that Electronic Arts is doing in the gaming industry that isn’t ruining Mass Effect 3’s ending, and that’s fine. This blog probably isn’t for you in the first place.
EA’s subsidiary responsible for Battlefield 3, Digital Illusions CE (also known as DICE), released its long-awaited mobile app for its Battlelog pseudo-social network it deployed with the launch of the game. DICE’s Global Community Manager for BF3, Daniel Matros, announced the release on his popular Twitter feed. 1
Now, there’s nothing wrong with this whatsoever. I, as an iPhone 4S user, have already downloaded the app and it’s all great fun being able to show folks that I am not among the elite in the BF3 community by my sub-1.00 kill/death ratio and the fact that my top three weapons include the SKS, not to mention that I haven’t hit Colonel level 50 yet, let alone any level of Colonel.
As a Twitter user, there’s nothing wrong with announcing something before your PR department releases something boring and simple. That and you get to inject a bit of personality into it, whereas if a PR drone were to write up the release, it would almost completely lack any manner of emotion or excitement.
However, in response to users asking him about an Android version (which surely has to be coming at some point), zh1nt0 had the following to fire back with: 2
@mund0x Android.. It´s like asking if future BF games will be released on Betamax
I’m not quite sure that was the most professional sort of reply from a Global Community Manager.
Now, I don’t think he’s going to be losing his job over something like this. I mean, everyone has a right to their opinions, but I’m pretty sure he’s going to be getting a talking to from the community at large after comparing Android to Betamax. There are Apple fanboys, and then there are those that take things a bit too far.
And to be quite honest, the Battlelog application doesn’t seem to have the design thought put into it compared to the Halo Waypoint companion that Bungie and Microsoft developed for the iPhone. For the short time that I spent playing the Halo prequel title online, I felt like the mobile experience the app provided actually enhanced the system as a whole.
To DICE’s credit, the Battlelog system would be great if it weren’t so tightly integrated into the game thanks to the capabilities and EA’s desire to show off Origin. But then again, Battlelog is no replacement for the server browser being built into the game itself.