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Frostbite 3 Won't Escape EA's Building Anytime Soon

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By MrJenssen24-06-2013

Showing up for an interview with Pocket-Lint.com, executive producer for the upcoming Need for Speed: Rivals, Marcus Nilsson talks at some length about the NFS franchise, online multiplayer, the upcoming consoles and the Frostbite engine. Though there's not too much specific new information to take away from the interview concerning the upcoming NFS: Rivals, Nilsson did say something interesting about the Frostbite 3 engine.

"It's never going to be the Unreal Engine because we're never going to let anyone use it. It's EA's engine and EA is going to start developing that."

It's an interesting comparison, as the Unreal Engine 3 has become enormously popular over the past years, and remains popular today. Highly moldable, the engine is represented in hundreds of games, in anything from Deadlight to Rising Storm. The Frostbite 2 engine on the other hand, while praised for its graphical and destructive potential in games such as Battlefield 3, hasn't caught on with other games outside EA's domain. It's now apparent that it's not because other developers aren't interested in using it, but rather that EA aren't interested in licensing it out. EA seem to take the same strategy they were using to try and make Origin popular - restricting certain EA-published games to only play through Origin - and use it for their engines as well.

Is it just me, or do EA not seem to understand that locking your engine down and denying others access to it usually tends to be a very bad long-term strategy? The lost profits aside, you're also restricting its potential to blossom with other creative minds outside EA as well, which in turn will make your engine even more popular and profitable. But then again, EA often seem to like thinking they live in their very own bubble, unaffected and unaffecting by the world outside.

Meanwhile we have some footage of Battlefield 4, above, showcasing the engine in question. So what do you think? Are EA setting themselves up to fail again? Comments below.


Comments (4)
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Posts: 1317

Frostbite is one of the exceptions to a large ocean of crappy engines, though. EA could turn it into the next Unreal Engine, make it the engine everyone wants to make their games with. It's not like that would automatically create more competition anyway. It's not like Gears of War sells less because Rising Storm uses UE3.

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Posts: 3290

A lot of companies don't license their engines and they do just fine. In fact, licensing them out is the exception, not the rule. Still, again, it's the way they've gone about it that makes me urgh. They just sound like douchebags.

Again

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Posts: 267

Just like Zenimax is not licensing idTech 5.

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Posts: 351

I dont blame them, it looks good.