http://kotaku.com/5336305/battlefield-heroes-15-million-players-have-spent-a-lot-of-money

"Battlefield Heroes is a living, breathing experiment in online gaming for Electronic Arts. It's also one that I'm particularly fond of. But just how successful has it been for the company?

Going by these numbers, I'd say "very". EA have sat down with the game's statistics and whittled them down into some palatable, practical numbers. Like:

- There are around 1.5 million people counted as "users". Whether they're active users or that's the all-time registration count wasn't specified.

- 50.4% of players are Nationals, 49.6% are Royals. That's an amazingly narrow margin for a game played by so many people.

- 40% of players choose to play as Commandos, 37% are Soldiers, and 23% are Gunners.

- EA say that, on average, each player in the game has spent $20, mostly on upgraded outfits for their soldiers. Multiply $20 by 1.5 million people and you get $30 million. Not bad for a game that's supposedly "free".

Seeing as I'm a Royal Commando who's spent around $10 on the game, I'd say those numbers are spot-on. Except for maybe the class breakdowns. I seem to always end up on maps full of Gunners..."

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Wow, that's much more than I expected it to do, at least over such a short period of time. And these $30 mio. are from microtransactions alone, I'd really like to know how much profit EA gains in total (microtransactions, ads).

EA has got to be happy about this one.

Unfortunatelly, no:
http://twitter.com/BFHeroes/statuses/3283197273
"We were misquoted in the @IGNcom report yesterday. The average Heroes BUYER spends $20, not the average PLAYER. Not all players spend money"


So only those spend $20, who already spent something.


Anyways, the game is definitely very profitable, even if 10% of the players are buyers, it is 3 million +the ads, while the game is very simple and cheap.

Oh well, I wish we had something more specific then

Average 20$ from buyer still probably equals to what they would get as publisher slice of retail console game price.

Great nice to see this game is a success.

Bah, i want Battlefield 3 for the PC Dammit!!!

I like this game, but find it is very unfair if you happen to be playing with something who is say level 25. It would take forever to hit level 25 without paying.

I'm level 10 and I haven't spent a penny on the game. At about level 9, you begin leveling extremely slowly. With BattleFunds (the currency you have to pay for) you can buy a double XP bonus that simply doubles the XP earned for certain periods of time. This gives those who are willing to pay a pretty huge advantage (among other things) over free players. Even if the paid players suck they will most likely earn more XP, allowing them access to more abilities faster.

I estimate the revenue to be 50,000 x $15=$750,000 tops. PC gamers are quite cheap, most players play it for free.

I don't think microtransactions-only supported games will be big yet. I never hear any talk about this game or Quake Live.

I hope this doesn't move into future Battlefield games.

The things you have to pay real money for don't directly affect gameplay and not only that, many things you buy in Heroes with Valor Points (in-game currency) or Battle Funds (real money) only last for a set amount of time before you have to rebuy them.

So unless you're buying temporary xp boosts (or something like that), I'd say buying anything in the game with Battle Funds is pointless. Unless you really want to be pay real money to wear a certain hat for 7 days. . .