EA: Medal of Honor a "clear success"

By Fred Dutton Published 2 November, 2010

You can expect a sequel.

Despite middling review scores and analyst scepticism, Medal of Honor has been an unmitigated success story for EA, CEO John Riccitiello has insisted.

Speaking at an investor call earlier today, he said, "The game has exceeded our plan and expectations – sell-through and sell-in.

"It is an absolutely clear success on a business front. Consumer feedback has been strong, suggesting we've got a franchise now that we can successfully sequel in the future. I think it's the first step for this franchise back into the marketplace."

Yes, sequel is a verb now.

Riccitiello revealed that the FPS franchise reboot has now sold two million copies worldwide.

The game launched on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 last month. Eurogamer wasn't among the naysayers – we deemed it worthy of a very respectable 8/10.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (35) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • Dave52 #1 2 years ago

    Good... oh, and first...

  • JBlokeUK #2 2 years ago

    Well done Dave52, give yourself a well deserved pat on the back.

    Still to play the latest Medal of Honour, which reminds me I was going to give this a rent at least.

  • feistycheese #3 2 years ago

    Nice to see mediocre games do well, and great to hear that we can expect another mediocre generic FPS sequel because for some reason everybodys happy with mediocre, as long as you get to say 'Hoorah' at the end of every sentence and blow the crap out of some generic desert tribesman with a penchant for fertiliser.

    *wishes Joe Public would see the light and try games like Vanquish*

  • karaokequeen3 #4 2 years ago

    It's a pretty solid start, if unspectacular.

    But for goodness sake, make the hard mode actually hard next time round, eh?

  • sneetch #5 2 years ago

    I agree with that karaokequeen3 hard mode was a bit easy, glad to hear this is getting "sequeled" quite enjoyed it.

  • darkmorgado #6 2 years ago

    EA: "MoH didn't meet out quality standards"
    EA: "MoH was a clear success"

    The moral of this story? Companies know that shite sells.

  • trooperdx3117 #7 2 years ago

    Who knows the sequel could turn out to be brilliant ala Assasins Creed 2, or not ala Modern Warfare 2

  • Dashnak #8 2 years ago

    "Yes, sequel is a verb now. "

    haha xD

  • zedzee #9 2 years ago

    I was at the EG Expo - graphics and gameplay no further than first COD:MW, in my opinion.

  • vmanb #10 2 years ago

    One smells yet another EA yearly update of a franchise on the horizon. Shame on you

  • darkmorgado #11 2 years ago

    One smells yet another Activision yearly update of a franchise on the horizon. Shame on you

    Fixed.

  • sink257 #12 2 years ago

    So which will come out first, BF3 or MOH2? Any guesses?

  • frugtkompot #13 2 years ago

    "Consumer feedback has been strong".

    Nonsense. Consumer feedback has been harsh and poor, because MOH is nothing more than a decisively mediocre title.

  • richarddavies #14 2 years ago

    I bought Medal of honour last week along with Vanquish at the same time. MOH hasn't really had a look in really, and understandably so. Vanquish is awesome.

  • thomaspower0 #15 2 years ago

    MoH isnt that bad. I mostly enjoy playing online and the campaign was quite good. Some things in this game suck but now Dice and Danger Close knows what to do next.

  • Master09 #16 2 years ago

    I got this game for only its single player, though not a bad game, I was dissapointed in that ut was not much different from MW.

    EA hyped this game as more tactical and more realistic FPS that many modern shooters but it wasnt. This game was highly scripted just like COD. Let down for em

  • jefranklin18 #17 2 years ago

    Don't mind another in the Medal of Honor series if it uses a more modern engine (Frostbite, bespoke?) and it is not generic bullshit. The Medal of Honor was established during the American Civil war ([link url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_of_honor).
    ]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_of_ho...[/link]

    How about a FPS based around that? It wasn't all standing in lines firing at each other - there were the ranger units (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudoun_Ran... that operated behind the frontline in enemy territory. This would fit fine into the model that modern gamer likes.

    There you go EA - take that as a freebie. :)

    Edit:

    Thinking about this further, one of the distinguishing features of the Medal of Honor series are the large set piece battles - whether it be at the end as in the current, or the Normandy beach landings in the first. This could be transposed to the American Civil war with the lines of soldiers facing each other, cannon fire going off, etc as the opening scene before your unit separates off to become the ranger unit.
    Edited by jefranklin18 at 03/11/10 @ 09:21

  • GaryStew1980 #18 2 years ago

    I got this game as much for the BF3 Beta as the actual game itself. I was actually fairly suprised by how good it turned out to be. In saying that I had pretty low expectations. Single player was pretty good although way too short. Mulitplayer is pretty solid too. Can't help feel though that it was a bit like ODST in that it should never have been a full price game. Like ODST the single player was too short although in MOH defence at least it used it's own multiplayer suite rather than steal the one from Halo 3. As enjoyable as I have found it online it is hugely scaled back from the likes of BFBC2 in terms of upgrades, medals, badges etc... You only have to look at the stats websites of both games to see the glaring difference. If they can put out a longer campaign mode and put all the functions that BFBC2 had into multiplayer then they have their own COD & MW Franchise. Cant understand why they have such low levels for getting all unlocks though.

    As for Vanquish, played both demos and hated it, it was like Gears of War on speed but just not very good. Reviewers and players are raving so must give it a rent to see what i missed.

  • bluem4gic #19 2 years ago

    err no thank you

  • Fab4 #20 2 years ago

    I'm pretty sure it is English he is using but for the life of me, half of the words are gibberish.

    Edit: I enjoyed my lunch yesterday. I think I will 'successfully sequel' it today.
    Edited by Fab4 at 03/11/10 @ 09:33

  • Spekingur #21 2 years ago

    I wonder if EA will try a F2P MOH.

  • lp24h #22 2 years ago

    from a franchise reboot i dont think it was a bad first attempt. considering all the bad games since MOH frontline and the gap to this one it was ok. i enjoyed the single player even tho hard was not hard. granted it was a tad short aswell. i kinda thought i was half way through then it was showing the credits!! there was a WTF moment. i did expect more missions from the tier 1 guys considering they were the ones advertised. for the multiplayer i was a little dissapointed. when i heard dice was doing it i thought great but then i found that it was just bfbc2 online all over again but a little worse. i cannot understand games to why they only allow certain maps for certain game modes. that annoys me. open all maps for all game modes. unless they dont make sense of course. either way i think it was a good attempt. hopefully with the sequel they will fix alot.

  • CHACK #23 2 years ago

    So EA's share price took a 6% drop based on the poor reviews.
    Its first Amazon review had the comment "this games sucks"
    It scored an 8 on Eurogamer and was "passable" at IGN
    and Patrick Soderlund tells everyone "it didn't meet expectation"

    so what "clear success" would that be?

    sounds like the gospel from another Moron in a suit who smokes the same carpet as Bobby Kotick does.
    Edited by CHACK at 03/11/10 @ 11:49

  • schnide #24 2 years ago

    @CHACK

    This very article says the game got an 8.

  • schnide #25 2 years ago

    @Fred Dutton

    What are the middling review scores? It's got a Metacritic rating of around 75 and you yourselves gave it an 8, which you even say yourself is a very respectable score!

  • PYF #26 2 years ago

    I thought single-player was a bit dull, but multiplayer is awesome. But then, I adored B:BC2.

  • sneetch #27 2 years ago

    @CHACK
    so what "clear success" would that be?

    That would be sales and customer feedback, like he said, presumably not just listening to the (and let's be honest here) usual, generally negative internet forums. The reviews may not have been amazing (mind you, 8 from Eurogamer is "Very good" according to the Scoring Policy) but should they give a crap so long as the game sells?

    I'm sure the next one will be a step up in quality from this one, they'll learn a lot from this one and improve it, it's what they do.

    Why people would object to the thought of them developing a sequel where they doubtlessly intend to improve the worse areas I don't know. Would they prefer a one horse race with only CoD in this area? So that IW/Treyarch can just lazily churn out sequels?

    Naw, competition is good, it'll force both EA and Activision to up their game.
    Edited by sneetch at 03/11/10 @ 12:52

  • makeamazing #28 2 years ago

    I thought MOH was better than MW2, but was very poor in terms of quality control. Barrels flying through the air (and staying there), invisible walls, and poor design, but it had potential, which is not what i would have said of MW2... which was just bad.

  • CHACK #29 2 years ago

    @Sneetch

    hmm, personally if I saw that HMV were selling my closest competitor product for £7.99 when they traded in my "success story" less than a month on launch i'd say that was de-valuing my product for a better one, I don't disagree that it'll cause both EA and Activision to up their game and I hope it does, working for a publisher I can tell you I see it first hand all the time but the truth is you don't write a $70 Million cheque for development in the FPS market unless you've done your homework - its far more difficult to bring those MOH players that got burned back into your franchise a second time round when the benchmark is being set elsewhere - here's hoping Respawn have something innovative to bring to the table next time round.

  • BrownWillson #30 2 years ago

    Its a clear success for companies facing one. Consumer response has been very strong, suggesting that won a franchise now that can successfully follow in the future.

    No Deposit Poker

  • oceanclub #31 2 years ago

    I for one am glad. There simply aren't enough jingoistic on-rails contemporary warfare shooters out there.

    P.

  • sjmlondon #32 2 years ago

    It was alright but I wonder how many people bought it on the strength of DICE developing the multi player and expecting another Battlefield Bad Company quality experience.

    For anyone who doesn't know by now, Medal of Honor multiplayer is not a patch on BFBC2.
    Edited by sjmlondon at 03/11/10 @ 14:18

  • Katanax #33 2 years ago

    "The game has exceeded our plan and expectations – sell-through and sell-in."

    "It is an absolutely clear success on a business front."

    So EA won't be persecuting gamers who buy copies second hand? After the Project $10 fiasco and the other crap EA have been pulling, I'm happy that they've made their money and are willing to leave it at that... Oh, wait...

  • bobmar360 #34 2 years ago

    I think for many of my pals this was a time filler while they wait for cod

  • CaptainKid #35 2 years ago

    I haven't even bothered downloading and installing the game for free.