At the Credit Suisse 2016 Annual Technology Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, Electronic Arts Chief Competition Officer Peter Moore talked about the publisher's plans to turn Battlefield into a competitive platform.

"We've watched this with great interest for the last couple of years, and decided in the last six months that the time is right to start to invest in this, and not only on our licensed properties, but even you'll see us, in calenadar year 2017, fully engaged with our Battlefield franchise, a wholly owned IP, and starting building our competitive game modes as part of that franchise."

Moore also explained what Electronic Arts stands to gain with moving the Battlefield franchise towards competitive multiplayer:

"There are microtransaction opportunities in Battlefield called BattlePacks, that allow you to progress your way through the game. We have also seen, in particular with great admiration for what CounterStrike: Global Offensive has been able to do, and to their credit, and the engagement levels with that are phenomenal. We'll simply sell more copies of Battlefield with the fact that there are competitive types of gaming mode built into that that allow people to compete."

It'll certainly be interesting to see if EA will manage to turn the Battlefield franchise into a proper e-sport platform. Battlefield 1 certainly seems to have been a commercial success, topping the NPD charts last month. Moore himself appeared to hint at confidence that the game performed solidly in November as well.

CFO Blake Jorgensen mentioned at the UBS Global Technology Conference in San Francisco that the publisher's executives are "very pleased" with the game's performance.