Battlefieldo organising, threatening EA/DICE with 24-hour Battlefield 3 blackout

Major community site Battlefieldo has handed EA and DICE an ultimatum: communicate with fans or "we're going to black out the entire Battlefield [3] community for one day, 24 hours - no playing, no posting and no tweeting".

"Why is it the studio that developed the game cannot communicate with the followers, fans and community of the very game they built?" asked Cory Niblett, managing director of Battlefieldo, in an open letter to EA and the community titled Battlefield Blackout.

"The answer of course is Electronic Arts: we can't get information or even acknowledgement about the issues we raise; patching schedules; game updates or even hints at downloadable content. Electronic Arts is too concerned with releasing information based on their precious yet inaccurate numbers that calculate the best times to release game updates and DLC. Not the community, not you, and certainly not me."

Hence the ultimatum.

"We're going to give Electronic Arts until Friday, 2nd March to announce the next major patch and the fixes that they have made, or are currently making. [And give] some acknowledgement of the outcry about the issues that are currently wrong with the game today.

"Or we're going to black out the entire battlefield community for one day, 24 hours - no playing, no posting and no tweeting."

"We don't wait to make a list of demands, nor do we feel entitled or obligated to information. We want clarity, communication, open lines to the DICE developers - and community management."

Cory Niblett, managing director, Battlefieldo

Niblett added: "Silence fed right back into the mouths of those who have chosen to give us the very same silence. We'll be waiting for you to give us our community back EA, and put it in the very capable hands of the people who developed and made the game.

"We don't wait to make a list of demands, nor do we feel entitled or obligated to information. We want clarity, communication, open lines to the DICE developers - and community management.

"We want to be able to communicate with the game developers, and know that they hear us as a community and as people who made the effort to go out and purchase their game."

The Twitter hashtag for this blackout is #BF3Blackout.

It is worth noting that ten days ago DICE promised fans it was working on a number of fixes for the game.

The upcoming tweaks will address issues relating to "balance and gameplay, performance, stability and the overall feature set".

Then, DICE's Battlefield community man Daniel Matros promised more details "in the coming weeks".