After a remarkable four years, Ben Cousins; former Global General Manager of Easy Studios has finally said good bye to what he deems "his babies". This was first heard through his twitter, with random message of "@bfplay4free launches this week and it's time for me to leave EA. Very proud of what I've achieved in the last 4 years."

Whenever the name Ben Cousins is muttered, it is usually one in contempt but that is no surprise for his loud voiced and headstrong opinions about the western Free to play market and within his words the "exploitative" retail market.

Many rumours continue to escalate that his sudden departure was due to the article making its rounds through the web that deems retail games that are bought for $60 is "exploitative". Surely wouldn't be a comment your boss, one that is EA would like to hear but considering EA are looking into the digital business and given the green flag for the Free to play studio 'Easy' to produce not one but four titles, it would be hard to see anyone being let go because of that.

So why has he left from what seems to be a successful business? Only ones that know are Ben and EA, so I doubt we will ever know.

Who is Ben Cousins and what 'did' he achieve in those 4 years?
Cousins and his team that form Easy Studios are renowned for breaking the western free to play market back in 2006 announcing their first experimental title, Battlefield Heroes. BFH as it is more commonly known is a simple free to play cartoon shooter; a game that looks at the comical side of war games by giving players the ability to blast enemies with a simple wave of their hand or even send a cheeky message with an emote, be it a robot dance or the very tongue-in-cheek and rage inducing "chicken" emote.

Heroes was also EA's first title of "testing the free to play waters", as mentioned it was labelled as an experiment and a very successful one at that. Going into Closed Beta May 2008 and opening its doors to the world 25th June 2009, Battlefield Heroes within its first month of open beta reeled in a massive 1 million players. Today, it has over 7 million players and strongly grows still.

That's not all, Battleforge, a real time strategy game that summons monsters through the use of cards was first announced and released as a retail game, months after it was decided to make it free to play, which boosted the game's player base.

Due to Battleforge's success, the team known as Phenomic, the same masterminds behind the Spellforce series began work upon Lord of Ultima. Lord of Ultima is a web based strategy game that focuses upon an individual or an alliance claiming the title 'Lord of Ultima' by battling and conquering other players, fight dirty, play fair...it is all up to you.

With Heroes as the flagship and Battleforge and Lord of Ultima keeping a steady pace behind the cartoon shooter, it's no wonder that Ben and EA were onto something or were they?

On the surface it all looks great but behind the scenes...
In a recent presentation at GDC this year and later released upon the web for the public, Ben Cousins revealed the truth of what was happening. Battlefield Heroes wasn't the first title EA had created within the free to play market, in fact within cooperation with Neowiz, they released 'Battlefield Online' a Korean only F2P version of the very infamous DICE title, Battlefield 2.

Ben had gained information and instructions upon the free to play model used within Battlefield Online and was set to put this to work within the western market. If you get down to the basics of a free to play game, you allow players to download your game for free, provide them with the basics and add incentives that are bought with real currency, which is then used to fund the game or future titles.

Heroes was born, the incentives were clothing to customise a Hero on the battlefield and widgets such as an XP boost to level up more quickly. Within closed beta the VP (Valour Points and the in-game currency) allowed players to sustain themselves without any worry of running out.

This wasn't good from a business point of view, since the game was a product of a business and an experimental one. Ben needed to show there was actually some promise within the market and so the VP prices were raised BUT the Battlefunds (bought with real currency) were lowered, effectively 'converting' free players to paying players. From Ben's data, however it seems there is still a good chunk of players that don't pay and the team are perfectly happy with that.

For the rest of the story, it would be better explained by the man himself upon his web presentation that can be found here - http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/paying-to-win

Overall, the ruckus of November/December 2009 wasn't as bad as many painted it to be. In fact it was soon stated that December 2009 was one of the best months within Heroes for profits...so whatever choices and decisions were made, in fact saved what seemed to be a dying project and now sitting proudly within 2011, holding its own not just against other free to play titles but also AAA titles that many believed would take the player base of Heroes away.

This also led to a much bigger decision, which was later announced to be Battlefield Play4Free, a game that brings the best of the Battlefield series into a free to play variant. Using the maps and vehicles of the great 2005 hit, Battlefield 2 along with the critically acclaimed sequel, Battlefield: Bad Company 2's weapons and factions mixed in with the customisation and microtransaction model of Battlefield Heroes, it would be silly for any Battlefield fan to miss out.

Already there are speculations that this is simply just BF2 but for free, however the teaser trailers already throw down the gauntlet, the maps of Karkand, Oman and Sharqi will be the release maps of BFP4F, all heavily tweaked to provide a fresh feel to the battlefield (More cover, new areas that were previously blocked etc.) in other words, they will be the maps you know, love and recognise but they will demand new tactics

Furthermore, Ben has commented that there will be 'connections' between BFPlay4Free and the upcoming Call of Duty killer, Battlefield 3 but what those connections will be, no one can be certain but Ben has insisted that if someone is serious on grabbing Battlefield 3, then they MUST jump into BFP4F, even if it is just to hone and practice their skills in preparation for the 2011 hit FPS.

The future of Easy and their titles
A legacy has been left behind, a team still focused and highly motivated stand behind four titles and Oskar Burman has been given the torch and title of Global General Manager.

No matter how you look at it, these titles are here to stay until the community stop supporting the titles or EA states to go home.

Battlefield Play4Free hits open beta April 4th, boasting what seems to be double the amount of sign-ups of its predecessor but BFP4F has a purpose and it's very clear that Easy Studios have taken off the gloves and are going all out to dethrone their competition, which Ben has previously stated to be Combat Arms and WarRock.

And what of Ben, no one can deny that he has played a massive part, not only within Easy's success but also getting the free to play market out into the western market. As many have stated in reply to his twitter message, it would be a sad day to see him depart from the games industry as well, however there has been no mention of where he will go from here.

Free-to-play advocate Ben Cousins has announced that he is leaving Electronic Arts after more than four years.

As general manager of EA's Easy Studio he has been central to the publisher's plans to push into free markets using some of the companies strongest games franchises including forthcoming PC shooter Battlefield Play4Free and browser RTS Lord of Ultima.

ShadowJ via gamesindustry.biz »