Cousens: "There is no such thing as a casual shooter fan"

Ben Cousens, head of the studio behind the upcoming Battlefield Play4Free, has said Battlefield Heroes proved all shooter fans are hardcore.

"[Battlefield Heroes] was an experiment to discover if there is such a thing as a casual shooter fan," Cousens told games.on.net.

"And the result of the experiment is that there is no such thing as a casual shooter fan. So 75 percent of our players on Heroes are core shooter fans."

Cousens said Battlefield Heroes attracted a crowd far removed from the Farmville types.

"We've done … proper market research into how people experience free to play games, and they play them in addition to core games.

When asked why a player would choose a freemium title over a major release, Cousens pointed out the practicalities of the matter.

"They've got limited income. So maybe they buy one core game every couple of months, but they're such committed gamers they just wanna experience and play everything that's available."

On that note, the Easy Studios head said recently that $60 price tags on games are "exploitative".

Battlefield Play4Free is a freemium release of Battlefield 2 with reworked maps and gameplay and assets from Battlefield: Bad Company 2. It opens doors to all comers on April 4.