June 30th, 2012, 08:59 GMT · By Andrei Dumitrescu

By Mike Williams

Fri 29 Jun 2012 8:39pm GMT / 4:39pm EDT / 1:39pm PDT
GamesOnline

Only two weeks in, EA’s premium FPS service has almost reached a million users

EA’s Battlefield Premium service for Battlefield 3 has enlisted more than 800,000 users since its launch two weeks ago. The service offers discounts and early access on the game’s expansions, including the recently-released Close Quarters. EA Games Label executive vice president Patrick Soderlund told USA Today that the initial response to the service has pleased the publisher.

“We are very pleased with the performance so far. We’re actually only two weeks into it, so it’s a little early to tell how this is going to pay off,” said Soderlund. “It certainly it looks very promising right now.”

Soderlund also expects EA to launch more original properties down the line, as it did with Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge for this console generation.

“If we think we can live off of our existing brands and that only, I think it will not only be costly, but a short-lived mistake,” he said. “I still think there’s a lot of creative juice in brands like Battlefield and Need For Speed and a bunch of our franchises, but I also do think there’s a lot of room for new intellectual properties. We are investing in that today, and you will see new IPs from EA and the Games label in the future.”

About the author

Mike Williams
M.H. Williams has been writing in some form or another for ten years and has been a hardcore gamer since the NES first graced American shores. You can catch him on Twitter as @AutomaticZen.

EA’s recently launched Battlefield 3 ‘Premium’ service, which is a sort of mix between a season pass and, well, Call of Duty Elite, has apparently gotten off to a pretty good start. A really good start, actually.

USA Today recently had a chat with EA Games head Patrick Soderlund, in which he revealed that just under two million people–800,000, if you care for something more specific–have already signed up for the service within the first two weeks.

In case this is the first you’ve heard of Battlefield 3 Premium, the service allows players early access to each of the game’s expansion packs, the most recent of which is Close Quarters. Premium members also earn a few other goodies, such as weapon skins, exclusive videos, exclusive double XP events, and more.

It’s not quite as fleshed out as Call of Duty Elite, admittedly, but there’s some pretty good value there. If you were to buy all of the expansion packs, you’d be looking at quite a bit more than the $50 asking price for Battlefield 3 Premium.

Naturally, the success of Battlefield 3 Premium has EA looking at the possibility of offering a similar service for some of its other franchises. “We’re actually only two weeks into it, so it’s a little early to tell how this is going to pay off,” Soderlund told USA Today. “It certainly it looks very promising right now.”

Have you purchased Battlefield 3 Premium?

EA’s subscription service for Battlefield 3 picks up nearly a million users in its first two weeks of release, according to a USA Today piece with EA Games chief Patrick Soderlund. Not bad numbers in the least for a game that’s been out for nearly eight months.

The release included the “Close Quarters” DLC, which brought new weapons and maps to the DICE-developed shooter.

For reasons much too ridiculous to get into here, I’ve only had a couple of hours to mess around with Premium thanks to a code sent over by EA PR. But I can say this: it’s a much smoother experience than the Elite service, used by Modern Warfare 3. Instead of taking you out of the game into a separate application, you can check the DLC release and event calendar right inside the game, plus the layout is simply a lot more coherent. I’ll try to bring you more detailed thoughts in the next few days, but kudos to DICE for building on the game in the way they have.

[Source: USA Today]

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Tags battlefield 3, dice, ea, PC, PS3, Xbox 360

Battlefield 3 Premium is off to a quick start. EA Games Label boss Patrick Soderlund told USA Today in an interview published today that the $50 pay-once downloadable content offering attracted 800,000 users in its first two weeks, driving $40 million in revenue.

Battlefield 3 Premium is nearing platinum status.

Soderlund said this figure is ahead of EA’s internal expectations, but noted it is too soon to know exactly how successful the program is or will be, given it launched just weeks ago.

“We’re actually only two weeks into it, so it’s a little early to tell how this is going to pay off,” Soderlund said. “It certainly looks very promising right now.”

By comparison, Activision’s $50 Call of Duty: Elite annual subscription for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has attracted 2 million paying members since it launched in November. Like Battlefield 3 Premium, Call of Duty: Elite grants users access to a stream of map packs and other perks.

Battlefield 3 Premium includes access to five Battlefield 3 map packs (Back to Karkand, Close Quarters, Armored Kill, Aftermath, and End Game), which altogether add more than 20 new arenas to the modern-day shooter. Additionally, those who purchase the $50 offering are awarded early access to all forthcoming map packs. For more on everything included with Battlefield 3 Premium, check out the Battlefield 3 website.

Within the first two weeks of availability, more than 800,000 players signed up for the Battlefield 3 Premium service, says EA Games chief Patrick Soderlund in an interview with Game Hunters.

The service tied to EA’s popular first-person shooter gives players early access to the game’s downloads, including the recently released Close Quarters.

Soderlund says the initial response has topped EA’s expectations. “We are very pleased with the performance so far,” he says.

Premium was introduced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo earlier this month. It’s available for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. As part of a deal reached with PS3 makers Sony, downloads were available to Premium PS3 owners first, followed by PC and Xbox 360 one week later. From there, all owners across all platforms will receive the DLC.

As for whether EA might adopt similar plans for their other games, it’s still too soon to tell. “We’re actually only two weeks into it, so it’s a little early to tell how this is going to pay off,” says Soderlund. “It certainly it looks very promising right now.”

As head of the EA Games label, Soderlund commands a powerful lineup including Battlefield 3, which has shipped 15 million copies since its October 2011 release. Also on the Games label: Dead Space 3, Need For Speed, Crysis 3, Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

It’s heavy on sequels, a departure from a few years ago when EA seemed to embrace fresh franchises more frequently such as Mirror’s Edge. Soderlund says expect the publisher to introduce more original properties down the road.

“As game makers, we have to continuously work and launch new intellectual properties into the market,” says Soderlund. “If we think we can live off of our existing brands and that only, I think it will not only be costly, but a short-lived mistake. I still think there’s a lot of creative juice in brands like Battlefield and Need For Speed and a bunch of our franchises, but I also do think there’s a lot of room for new intellectual properties. We are investing in that today, and you will see new IPs from EA and the Games label in the future.”

Here are a couple more excerpts from our interview with Soderlund:

GH: How would you assess the health of the video game console business?

Soderlund: “I think there’s still a large number of console gamers out on the market. It’s not necessarily growing at the pace as it has before, but maybe because we haven’t seen new hardware for a long time, and the behavior of the consumer is changing.

What EA has undergone in the last 4-5 years — the digital transformation that we’ve been going through has been based on that type of consumer and how that consumer plays. If EA was a very console-centric company five years ago, it’s wrong to say we don’t still focus on packaged goods. But if you look at the volume of revenue coming from what we call direct to consumer digital, that’s by far the fastest growing part of EA. So I think EA as a company … as such, is rapidly changing and adapting to this new type of consumer behavior and new platforms that arise.

I do think the console experience now and in the future will always be — I compare it to the Hollywood blockbuster, the summer movies. If you want the highest, blockbuster experience in the highest fidelity, you’re going to want to hook it up to your 65-inch TV with your 5.1 sound, darken the room and then go play it and get really immersed in that experience. We can’t get that as of yet on an iPad, iPhone or an Android phone or whatever it may be. You can’t necessarily get that on a free-to-play game on PC as well. If you want that experience, that blockbuster feel, you still need to play that on a console and experience that on a console. I don’t think that’s going to change. It will be the same going forward.”

GH: The Wii U is slated to launch later this year. How much has EA invested into that system?

Soderlund: We’re backing the Wii U with a couple of titles for launch. Obviously, what was announced at E3 was the (EA Sports) lineup. If you look at our Games label, we will assess the Wii U as we do with any platform. If it’s successful, we’ll be on it, and we absolutely hope it will be, and think it will be. If it is, we will appear on that platform will all the games that we deem need to be on that platform.

DLC and micro transactions are the methods that most game developers have adopted to keep their games in the news and fresh with gamers, and why not, its almost free to the players and costs the game developers very little to market.

Within the first two weeks of availability, more than 800,000 players signed up for the Battlefield 3 Premium service, says EA Games chief Patrick Soderlund in an interview with Game Hunters.

The service tied to EA’s popular first-person shooter gives players early access to the game’s downloads, including the recently released Close Quarters.

Soderlund says the initial response has topped EA’s expectations. “We are very pleased with the performance so far,” he says.

They are offering the DLC on PS3 first (likely because of some grease from Sony) and then open it up for the other consoles and PCs a week later.  It would seem that buying a mission pack disk is no longer a viable option.

Related Web URL: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunter…

In its first two weeks of availability, over 800,000 individuals have signed up for Battlefield 3 Premium. “We are very pleased with the performance so far,” EA Games’ Patrick Soderlund told USA Today. Still, Soderlund exercised caution on the outlook for Premium. “We’re actually only two weeks into it, so it’s a little early to tell how this is going to pay off. It certainly it looks very promising right now.” Since launching in October, Battlefield 3 has shipped 15 million copies, Soderlund says.

Battlefield 3 Premium, announced a few weeks back at E3, gives those who plunk down a one-time fee of $50 early access to all DLC content, which non-Premium members must pay for piecemeal. The PS3 also has a weeklong exclusivity window for Battlefield 3 DLC – after that week, the DLC is then available to PC and Xbox 360. The first expansion pack, Close Quarters, is currently available on all platforms.

Within the first two weeks of availability, more than 800,000 players signed up for the Battlefield 3 Premium service, says EA Games chief Patrick Soderlund in an interview with Game Hunters.

The service tied to EA’s popular first-person shooter gives players early access to the game’s downloads, including the recently released Close Quarters.

Soderlund says the initial response has topped EA’s expectations. “We are very pleased with the performance so far,” he says.

Premium was introduced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo earlier this month. It’s available for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. As part of a deal reached with PS3 makers Sony, downloads were available to Premium PS3 owners first, followed by PC and Xbox 360 one week later. From there, all owners across all platforms will receive the DLC.

As for whether EA might adopt similar plans for their other games, it’s still too soon to tell. “We’re actually only two weeks into it, so it’s a little early to tell how this is going to pay off,” says Soderlund. “It certainly it looks very promising right now.”

As head of the EA Games label, Soderlund commands a powerful lineup including Battlefield 3, which has shipped 15 million copies since its October 2011 release. Also on the Games label: Dead Space 3, Need For Speed, Crysis 3, Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

It’s heavy on sequels, a departure from a few years ago when EA seemed to embrace fresh franchises more frequently such as Mirror’s Edge. Soderlund says expect the publisher to introduce more original properties down the road.

“As game makers, we have to continuously work and launch new intellectual properties into the market,” says Soderlund. “If we think we can live off of our existing brands and that only, I think it will not only be costly, but a short-lived mistake. I still think there’s a lot of creative juice in brands like Battlefield and Need For Speed and a bunch of our franchises, but I also do think there’s a lot of room for new intellectual properties. We are investing in that today, and you will see new IPs from EA and the Games label in the future.”

Here are a couple more excerpts from our interview with Soderlund:

GH: How would you assess the health of the video game console business?

Soderlund: “I think there’s still a large number of console gamers out on the market. It’s not necessarily growing at the pace as it has before, but maybe because we haven’t seen new hardware for a long time, and the behavior of the consumer is changing.

What EA has undergone in the last 4-5 years — the digital transformation that we’ve been going through has been based on that type of consumer and how that consumer plays. If EA was a very console-centric company five years ago, it’s wrong to say we don’t still focus on packaged goods. But if you look at the volume of revenue coming from what we call direct to consumer digital, that’s by far the fastest growing part of EA. So I think EA as a company … as such, is rapidly changing and adapting to this new type of consumer behavior and new platforms that arise.

I do think the console experience now and in the future will always be — I compare it to the Hollywood blockbuster, the summer movies. If you want the highest, blockbuster experience in the highest fidelity, you’re going to want to hook it up to your 65-inch TV with your 5.1 sound, darken the room and then go play it and get really immersed in that experience. We can’t get that as of yet on an iPad, iPhone or an Android phone or whatever it may be. You can’t necessarily get that on a free-to-play game on PC as well. If you want that experience, that blockbuster feel, you still need to play that on a console and experience that on a console. I don’t think that’s going to change. It will be the same going forward.”

GH: The Wii U is slated to launch later this year. How much has EA invested into that system?

Soderlund: We’re backing the Wii U with a couple of titles for launch. Obviously, what was announced at E3 was the (EA Sports) lineup. If you look at our Games label, we will assess the Wii U as we do with any platform. If it’s successful, we’ll be on it, and we absolutely hope it will be, and think it will be. If it is, we will appear on that platform will all the games that we deem need to be on that platform.