As we've documented here in Ad Watch with keen interest, ad sponsored titles seem to be the wave of the future when it comes to casual and mobile titles. Making games of this type free is something that's been very warmly received by gamers all around the world. While the PC retail sector seems to be in something of a decline, the future may lie with digital distribution and any number of ad and micro-transaction supported games online.

Although you could call this a burgeoning business, it's been fairly insular from the "core" gaming realm of consoles. In GameDaily BIZ's recent feature with Zynga, however, Mark Pincus ventured that it would only be a matter of time before companies like Electronic Arts became more involved in the casual and ad supported field. Sure enough, not a month later, EA announced the first title using the "Play 4 Free" model titled Battlefield Heroes.

We caught up with Ben Cousins, Senior Producer at EA DICE, and discussed how Battlefield Heroes will win the war in ad sponsored games.

Label system already bearing fruit
It makes perfect sense for Electronic Arts to want to be involved in ad and micro-transaction supported online games. After all, this new field's mushrooming popularity can been seen in titles like Maplestory, RuneScape and many others. Interestingly, however, this "Play 4 Free" move was apparently not an initiative that started as a dictate from above, but rather internally at EA DICE studios.

"While we have the full support of the larger EA, it was DICE in Sweden that decided to go for this new model last year. The new label system at EA gives us this freedom to experiment," said Cousins. "We decided to investigate the 'Play 4 Free' model because it struck us as an interesting way of achieving two goals - firstly we wanted to reach out to an audience that had previously been 'locked out' of the Battlefield experience, and secondly we were attracted to the way this service rather than product-based model meant that we can keep the game fluid and react to the behavior and opinions of the audience much more than we have done in the past. Going with an advertising and micro-transaction supported model was a way of achieving these goals."

So why did Battlefield become the franchise of choice for EA to experiment with the "Play 4 Free" field? Well, besides the fact that it was a DICE initiative, Battlefield also already has a strong online presence. "DICE has always been at the forefront of online gaming and on-going community support with the Battlefield series, and we are EA's most successful digitally-delivered title with the EA store, so it made perfect sense for us to make this move to a fully digitally-distributed ongoing game service," noted Cousins.

No sponsored grenades here
With in-game ad billboards appearing in recent retail copies of Battlefield games, some players were wondering if Battlefield Heroes would take the same route. GameDaily BIZ was assured, however, that this would not be the case, with ads only appearing on battlefield-heroes.com and in the game's menu with no ads during gameplay. The game itself, however, will draw on EA DICE's years of experience in the sub-genre they helped invent – with the ultimate goal of making Battlefield Heroes appeal to old and new fans alike.

"We've designed the experience to appeal to the core fans as well as new players," explained Cousins. "The classic Battlefield gameplay is very much retained, with infantry, land vehicles and aircraft fighting simultaneously in large open levels, an emphasis on teamplay and tactics and a sense of not being bogged down in the politics of war, but we've also been very careful to make the game as accessible as possible to non-core fans. The game is free to download and play, will run on a low spec desktop or laptop, contains matchmaking so you play with people of equal skill level to you, and the game itself is simple to understand and pick-up-and-play whilst also being possibly the deepest Battlefield game to date."

"In terms of visual customizations, the characters are made up of about fifteen different parts, all of which can be customized - heads, facial hair, helmets, jackets, boots etc," he continued. "In terms of gameplay customizations - the player unlocks new weapons, skills and abilities as they play, choosing specific character traits as they go, very much like an RPG. There are many hundreds if not thousands of combinations of different Battlefield Heroes soldiers, from a gameplay point of view."

Need for Speed Play 4 Free?
While Battlefield games have been generally about serious depictions of warfare (or are, at least, serious in their tone and style), Battlefield Heroes will have a more exaggerated and 'cartoony' aesthetic. This is important, because while Battlefield Heroes sounds like a concept potentially doomed to more rote design ideas than usual, Cousins sees it in a completely different light thanks to the game's ad supported online presence. He believes the business model and new direction for the series will lead the game in new and exciting directions.

"For me, two very powerful things [excite me about Battlefield Heroes]," described Cousins. "Firstly, not being bogged down in the realistic depiction of a particular historical era means we can say 'yes, let's do it' more often when we come up with crazy and creative ideas - we can be driven by fun gameplay ideas, rather than whether something fits the world or era. Secondly the ongoing online service model means that we can let the audience ultimately decide what the game is going to be. In three years time we could find Battlefield Heroes is all about whose character has the biggest mustache, or it could be about very strategic competitive play with clans and expert players. Anything is possible, and we will entertain any potential direction."

Finally, we had to ask whether or not they would be the first of many EA properties to be going online with this "Play 4 Free" model. "That would be up to the individual franchise teams to decide. We are really happy to be leading the way," said Cousins.