BF-Games Blog

During the last days I was confronted with gamers and website owners who criticize the release of news containing footage and screenshots of the Battlefield 3 Alpha trial. Some of them were just disappointed, others heaped reproaches on us and even said we are a disgrace for the community. The reason I’ve heard most of the times is disrespect and I think that was the point when I thought about writing some thoughts down so that everyone and not some representatives over DICE’s Google Newsgroup can read them. The first and main important thing is: we do respect the work of the development team and we like it, but that does not mean we are deaf, dumb, and blind.

When I look back at the history of the Battlefield series there have always been leaks. Patch 1.4 for Battlefield 1942 was leaked in 2003 because players searched and found it at EA Japans FTP server. The same thing happened 2005 with an unfinished version of Battlefield 2 and afterwards with the BF2 editor. During the last nine years I’ve seen dozens and dozens of leaks: screenshots, videos, patches, and other files. And every time they appeared fansites worldwide wrote news about it. And since we manage our fansite since 2002 we have all those stories at our archives. I have to admit that some of the news – especially those about leaked patches – caused trouble, but there was never a discussion whether a fansite writes about or not.

Having that said there were limits. A fansite would never write any news about the current list of trackers for a ripped version. A fansite would never write about any kind of warez, cracks, cheats, or allow any discussion about it. “No warez, no cheats, no cracks, and no support for those at our forums”. That is the very first part of our rules (written down in 2002) and we adhered to it since then. And that’s why we won’t accept any detractors who accuse us to have a lack of respect. Respect means not to harm anyone and in our opinion news about videos from the Battlefield 3 Alpha are nothing that can harm DICE or EA. Quite the contrary those videos seem to have a good marketing effect.

Today we published a news about a video that shows the ingame menu and weapons from the Battlefield 3 Alpha. This video was published four(!) days ago at the 24th of July and has more than 200.000 views so far. And the reaction from the mighty publisher: the author was banned from the Alpha, but the video is still there. Why? Normally DICE and EA  have the will and the power to delete those videos within hours (I’ve seen that many, many times before). So I’m asking you: why are those files still online and why can you find hundreds and thousands of other videos at YouTube? Why have such important files been distributed to normal players and not to a professional testing studio like Combat Testing? What the hell have DICE and EA expected when they made that decision?

Now that we’ve talked about the settings it’s time to talk about the media and since some of you said we are “unprofessionall” especially about professional media  If there is public interest there is news, and normally the press gives a shit about the source as long as there is a good story. I’ve been working as an editor for years and there were always persons who broke NDAs, contracts, and any other agreements you can not even imagine only to submit confidential information to us. Some did it because they wanted to change or reform something. Some did it because they were fired or pissed by someone, and some did it without any reason.But it all doesn’t matter. Once an information has been submitted an editor has to deliberate about whether the story has to be written or not. And If it is a matter of public interest the news WILL be published even if some people’s life falls apart after it. Watch any of the daily news shows and you will see what I’m talking about.

And here we go: there IS public interest, there is news about the Alpha public at Youtube, and we are a news website about the Battlefield series. The logical result: news about it. If you don’t get that or think it is disrespectful ask yourself why noone has questioned the decision to send the game to a bunch of gamers that would sell their own grandmother to get their finger on it. Ask yourself why this can happen while some of the most important details of the game – like the full weapon and kit layout, the recoil and spread, the total number of vehicles and maps, and so many other things – haven’t been announced yet. And finally ask yourself what the publication of screens of videos about the menu and the map has to do with disrespect. I’ll tell you what: nothing, absolutely nothing. That’s the way things work if something goes wrong. Next time you visit a party tell everyone that you have a photo of Halle Berry dancing naked on a table right in your jacket and leave it alone. Guess what will happen: you will lose it and the next day you will find it at every fucking website in the world.

Nuff said: we will not stop to write news about things everyone can find with a simple search at YouTube. We will not close our eyes if there is obviously something a Battlefield player could be interested in, as long as it is no stolen version of a game or something comparable. We will not shut up because something at the marketing department is going to cry about the news. We will not stop beeing BF-Games. We also have our “NDA”. And to all of you guys that criticize us while writing summaries about same videos we are talking about: why do you write about it and have not the courage to use the embed code?  Your double moral standards cloy us!

Cheers! PunK’
(of the old school)

[Edit: 07/27/2011, 09:46]

The leaked version of Windows 8 is a good example of what I’m talking about. Every – and I mean every – reliable tech website published (and still publishes) news about the leak, about the details, about the new functions, and all the fancy stuff that was published at the forums by users who downloaded and installed the leak. Has any of you written an e-mail to the tech websites and told them about respect? Could any of you imagine a leaked version of Windows 8 and not a single news about it? How do you judge in this case? If news about leaks are bad shouldn’t the tech websites stop writing about Windows 8? Microsoft must be really pissed – especially since the build was posted for sale on eBay – but the company has to deal with it. It’s called freedom of press and freedom of speech.