Battlefield Premium sells 800k; EA wants model for other brands

EA has confirmed that its paid-for multiplayer Battlefield 3 expansion Battlefield Premium has sold 800,000 subscriptions in its first two weeks.

That equates to something in the region of $40m in revenue.

Battlefield Premium offers members a numbers of perks including early access to multiplayer map expansions as well as various other bells and whistles such as branded dog tags.

To put the numbers into context, Activision launched its premium Call of Duty service – COD Elite – in November and has since then attracted 2m subscribers.

Perhaps inevitably, EA has now hinted that it may repeat its experiment with other IP.

"We’ve launched subscription businesses in our other categories,” EA Labels boss Frank Gibeau told Games Industry.

We had EA Sports subscription before Elite came out, so adding that component to the design is not a reaction. It’s something we’d always been considering and we had been looking at. We didn’t have it ready for launch and it took us some time to get it prepped.

Having said that, they [Activision] did something really innovative and if your competitor does something innovative and you think it applies to what you can do, then there’s no harm in doing that. This is an industry where people have a lot of oneupsmanship and if somebody innovates, you match it or you exceed it."