Developers say that they appreciate the popular cote win

Mar 19, 2012 13:16 GMT  ·  By

Battlefield 3, the first-person shooter from developer DICE and publisher Electronic Arts, has managed to get the GAME Public Award at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, the only one of the prizes that is directly voted on by the gamers themselves.

The victory was made sweeter by the fact that Battlefield 3 managed to triumph over Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, its main first-person shooter rival, but also on Portal 2 from Valve, which was the big winner of the night.

Speaking to VG247, Colin Blackwood, the business lead for the United Kingdom division of Electronic Arts, stated, “Obviously, Call of Duty has defined the size of the shooter market, so to get one over on them? That’s great.

“Similarly, Skyrim was in there, Valve’s Portal 2 was in there, Batman was in there and the Minecraft stuff’s going on as well. This is just about coming number one. It’s not about who we beat. It’s about being number one.”

Blackwood added, “I think people wanted something different. It’s so unique. The different level of depth you get on the multiplayer, with the vehicles, and when you just can’t believe you had a ‘Battlefield moment,’ it just blows you away.

“It offers something that no other game in the genre – actually no other game – actually does. It’s amazing.”

Battlefield 3 was seen as second best to Call of Duty for a long time in terms of sales, but the third game in the series managed to get a solid performance against Modern Warfare 3 and EA plans to build on its success in the coming years.

At the moment the DICE development team plans to launch a number of downloadable content packs for Battlefield 3, the first one of them called Close Quarters and planned for a June launch.