EA exploring Battlefield subscription service

This is sad and terrible. How can you do this to your fan base?! When will the gamers quit being taken advantage of?

Wow EA and dice.. Really? I love how they were talking about being different from CoD in interviews, but now with upcoming "expansion packs", smaller maps (obviously suited for death match style gameplay), and a consideration of subscription fee (which will most likely happen) they completely stooped low to activision's level.

EA is only interested in money. Lets face it, gaming is a huge business. EA runs a huge business. Inevitably any kind of business, is there, ultimately to make money. EA are aiming to be the most profitable games company. Of course, viewed in these terms, creating a subscription service is perfectly logical. It is profitable. Us, as gamers, resent this type of business model. It makes our blood boil. If nobody purchased this subscription, it would be shut down. Obviously, unfortunately, some gamers will purchase a subscription. Clearly, EA are milking their game. Again I repeat, It is perfectly logical. EA are maximising their profits. Its an unfortunate reality. This logic also applies to: Paid DLC, Online passes and Special/Limited/Complete edition games. I really dislike these business practices but I'm broad minded enough to realise, that they're not going to change.Its a sad reality.

So my father plays CoD I play Battlefield 3. I got my father the mw3 collector's edition that gives him CoD elite (the pay for service) free for one whole year. Honestly if I had to pay extra money every month for "elite" services (I also pay for xboxlive) I would be very very annoyed. They get a free map here or there maybe some new weapons, but nothing game changing or worth the extra price. I say this because if BF goes down this route I will just stop playing. Game devs NEED to find better ways to squeeze money out of people that leave the devs happy and leaves the consumer happy. I once heard now hear me out that brand new games should be 30 bucks. If you want the multiplayer expirence you need to shell out another 20 bucks and thats it. The devs see that money (the stores won't get it) and they make some money on used games. Plus in total the game only comes up to 50 bucks. This pay for extra content thing in the end is screwing over gamers big time.

Well I just wont pay it. If there were constant game changes and updates maybe. But I only barely can warrent paying a monthly fee for Old Republic and they have a staff working daily...therefor Im ok paying for that..even if is a little overpriced. No way Im doing to the same for a shooter

and yes MW 3 though buggy is little bit less when it comes to BF 3

albaficas look at the sales record of mw 3v and bf 3 I think it will give u faint idea about cod and yea I have bought and played both..........BF 3 multiplayer xcellent MW 3 single player and multiplayer both xcellent

Buying a time machine to be stuck in the 90's ship one here please k thanks

EA's corrupt corporate greed and all around douche baggery is really starting to piss me off.

EA needs to burn

And after 14 months they'll unplug the servers, just in time for the release of Battlefield 4.

"Like all other companies, we're looking at how we can maximize our PROFIT in this..." Fix'd.

thereal-15-cent just because 1 or 2 guyz said that doesnt mean the whole company said it too. Besides BF3 is in every single possible way better than CoD only die hard cod fans or ppl who are blind wont accept that.

like it or not haters BF3 is the best mutliplayer shooter to date Keep playing ur hello kitty expansion shooter cause i know where the major league is BF3 Above And Beyond The Call

What do u expect from us? We made a "product" not a game. With no respect yours CORPORATE DUSHBAGE

EA has spent the last year trashing CoD, but now they're following in Activision's footsteps? Pretty pathetic if you ask me.

Make the release date April 1st because this is a f******* joke

This is incredibly disappointing and just generally frustrating.

Well, this is...disappointing. I completely understand that EA is in business to make money, but they should make their money from me because I bought their product, not because I have to keep buying it.

Every day gaming gets a little more saddening. I miss the days when the industry was run by gamers for gamers. It's a shame that I almost have no interest in gaming anymore because all new titles are half-assed and riddled with money grabs.

I'de also like to point out the hilarious results of the poll on Battlelog this week. "What DLC are you looking forward to the most? Close Quarters/Armoured Kill/ End Game/ The Patch?" Votes for the patch were pushing 50% I think that says a lot...

I'll completely stop playing this game if they introduce subscription. The game struggles to work properly most of the time, the single player isn't worth playing, why should I pay for a buggy online mode thats not even fun after 7pm because all the pro players thrash my ass? So disappointed they're even considering this. Massive let down.

That's fine. It's not like Battlefield 3 brought the series back. Considering I won't be playing that waste of $60, feel free to do what you want with it.

One of these days, gamers will truly revolt against this type of BS. And Patrick, your in the business to make money, not the best product. You are far from a best product. The days where games are designed by gamers are long gone.

They already lost me when they went to that abortion of a service, Origin. I can't stand having to exit completely and relaunch just to get into a server browser, especially since so many times I wind up in servers where team a is exiting because team b keeps steamrolling. i haven't played since about 2-3 weeks in because origin just chaps my hide too much.

You force subscription for this and you are writing your own death sentence for the series. You'll divide the community and create more customer contempt than almost any other move you can make. But by all means go ahead EA. Go ahead and **** on one of your burgeoning IPs. I'll stop buying the second you do.

The second Battlefield starts trying to force me into any type of subscription service is the day I stop playing the series.Hey Patrick Soderlund, if you want to maximize profits how about making expansions that are actually good and worth getting. People will certainly buy it and you have the added bonus of extending the life of the game.These days developers want us to throw money at the screen even if they haven't done a damn thing to earn it - Its absolutely disgusting.

Captain Ahab must have his whale I see..

All of these companies are so worried about used after market sales. Just be glad your servers are full, everyone can't afford all these new games, so they buy them used. Some are hand-me downs, that they'd otherwise never get to play. It's like a car company saying the only cars allowed on the road should only be by the first owners of the vehicle! No used cars! Instead of focusing on that they just put out better and "better" products and move on! There's even rumors of the next XBOX being dlc only! I hope not! What also sucks about that is, if disconnected to the Internet then, you don't have access to the content. Not sure I like this, Gears of war 3 tried this and most of the "free" dlc was crap, just filler. I didn't buy into the whole elite thing with COD. BF stick to what you do best, large maps, with insane destruction, and vehicles. BF2 was almost perfect, and although I really enjoy BF3 it seems they scaled back the destructible environments. That's what help set them apart. If you keep getting sniped by campers, (and that's cool) you could blow the whole building up! Close quarters takes away one of BF strongest elements, team work. Yes there will probably be a ton of assault (medic) classes, but no real need for any of the others. Except some engineers to rocket everyone to death! Those who aren't doing that are shotgunning everyone with frag rounds! A lot of the times even killing themselves! Because they're so powerful! Lol

battlefield + smaller maps? = not really battlefield

$60 per game, probably around $20 for all of the map packs, and now possibly a subscription (probably $10-$30)? $100 for a single game is BS, I remember paying $50 for a game that had a "Story mode" that lasted longer than these so called "Single-player campaigns" plus multiplayer modes that had a dozen maps that were INCLUDED in the purchase. People are fed up and are tired of paying for features that should be included in the games they buy, maybe that's why you still have the desire to "maximize your investment"

Ridiculous. EA/dice should SERIOUSLY stop taking cues from Coowa-doody. Just because Activision has a bigger player base doesn't mean they deserve it.

run lemmings, run!!!! the cliff is this way! lol....

i dotn care..screw Battlefield and Modern Warfare Arma 2 owns Battlefield and anything Valve makes owns Call Of Duty so bla whatever,you guys want subscription models? you have it. The only reasons these exist is because of Sub fees being paid by millions currantly already in games. The reason why i didnt want to contribute to World Of Warcraft is this very reason. Because i KNEW one day , this would happen. So ill be supporting Guild Wars 2 and CS:GO and ARMA 3 instead.

If it included all map packs, I guess it wouldn't be too bad. But I think all Battlefield fans agree that following in COD's footsteps by making a premium service is not the direction that they want to see the franchise go.

wow i guess EA must be hard on money

I love how they translate "making us a sh**ton of money" into "making more players happy".

@eduardvictor I do love bethesda however with the release of Skyrim and lack of support on the ps3 im starting to change my opinion. How long has the game been out, yet us ps3 owners STILL are dealing with the crappy bugs that are currently making the game unplayable. Namely quests not continuing because an NPC doesn't have the speech options to continue. From what I understand the game is much better supported on PC/360 and we have to suffer with a broken buggy version (as usual)

I bought both MW3 and BF3, and personally I can't stand BF3. BF online was perfected on the consoles with bad company 2, but somehow they changed how the game plays and now I find myself on MW3 all the time whilst BF3 gathers dust, it use to be the other way round I think its about time a game comes out the rivals both COD and BF. When MAG came out I thought "this is the game". The idea was right, but teams were unbalanced and the game wasn't supported with DLC at all, especially for a game that is online only.

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EA will be EA.

I remember when stuff like this used to be free

hmm..food prices went up, the genius directors of my college decided that it's a wonderful idea to charge an additional 100 dollars per UNIT for impacted classes..gas prices will go to 5bux in the summer..now EA and this premium BS..god bless em..some will say "priorities!", but ehh (shrugs shoulders).

Fixing their damn servers should be first before thinking about more money. Sick of the lag.

I STILL LOVE IT ... ppl dont wan this expansion simply dont buy it .. and get lost , now BF3 got all corners under control , first BF3 release with vehicles jets and huge maps , Karkand new weps and amazing maps ... and now this with a closed challenging maps ... CAWL .

"What you shouldn't do is linger too long. You shouldn't stop and wait and try to figure things out." Yeeeaaa, don't bother trying to play tactically cuz' it's going to be a total COD run and gun noob tube fest!

The shareholders ain't happy.

this map pack is a complete COD ripoff.. come on Battlefield, stick to your roots and what YOU do best!

I have no problem with this. Back to Karkand was a great expansion and worth $15 in my opinion. If the content is WORTH it, I would consider this.

I like how he's quoted as saying they aren't trying to take down Call of Duty, and yet the new DLC coming out called "Close Quarters" which has no vehicles (from the trailers) is quite obviously meant to compete with Call of Duty. If there's a market for each game (as he suggests), then why are you making DLC that matches almost exactly what Call of Duty is? You should be marketing your OWN game your OWN way, the battlefield way, large maps, vehicle engagements, epic gameplay.