Premium has amassed 800k subscribers in only two weeks, which can only mean one thing.
By Chris Pereira



When Battlefield 3 was rumored to be getting a Call of Duty Elite-style service last month, it was not difficult to foresee more franchises following suit, particularly if this one did well. As we learned today, Battlefield Premium is safely in "doing well" territory, having amassed 800,000 users in its first two weeks on (virtual) store shelves.

Premium was launched earlier this month for $49.99. It entitles buyers to five Battlefield 3 expansion packs, two of which are already available. Premium members also get early access to these expansion packs (they're sold separately to non-Premiums), new camos for soldiers and weapons, new assignments, priority when waiting in server queues, and more. Controversy over whether non-paying members should be forced to wait longer to join servers aside, $50 is a good deal for those planning to buy all of the expansion packs. At $15 a pop, even those who received Back to Karkand for free from purchasing the game's Limited Edition would be saving $10 as the remaining DLC would cost a total of $60 to purchase individually.

The 800,000 figure was revealed by EA Games boss Patrick Soderlund, who was speaking with USA Today. He said EA is "very pleased with the performance so far" but claimed it's too early to declare whether other EA games would offer their own Premium services. Despite that, it's easy to see this success bringing dollar signs to the eyes of executives at Electronic Arts and other publishers as more and more companies begin to adopt the games-as-a-service mentality.

800,000 does fall short of the figures reached by Call of Duty Elite -- it had amassed 2 million paid subscriptions by the end of March without being available on PC, one million of them having signed up almost right out of the gate. Regardless, it is still a substantial number of people spending $50 upfront for content they won't have complete access to until next March when the End Game expansion is released. Keep in mind this was also an initiative launched more than seven months after the game's release; Elite's launch being lined up with the release of Modern Warfare 3 and being included in that game's Hardened Edition helped to drive subscriptions at a point in the year when interest in Call of Duty would be highest. By the time Premium was launched, one would think plenty of people who were keen on Battlefield when it first came out had moved on and no longer had any interest in a Premium subscription.

Prior to this, EA did offer a non-MMO subscription service in the form of the EA Sports Season Ticket (something that smartly applies to multiple titles). Other EA games now seem like targets for, at the very least, Season Pass-type DLC offerings -- it doesn't take much of a stretch to imagine Crysis 3, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Dead Space 3, or Medal of Honor: Warfighter allowing you to pre-order DLC in bulk at a discount (that's what purchasing a Season Pass amounts to, after all). And it's not just EA or Activision that have shown an interest in doing at least that much with their games. Sony, Microsoft, Take-Two, THQ, and Warner Bros. have all tested the waters with the likes of Uncharted 3, Forza 4, Gears of War 3, L.A. Noire, Saints Row: The Third, and Mortal Kombat, though none of those topped the $30 mark or went above and beyond offering DLC, which is what sets Premium and Elite apart from these examples.


Battlefield 3

Premium is demonstrating it's possible to get an extra $50 out of a subset of gamers without being a Call of Duty title. Battlefield is bigger than most games and as such, Premium's success won't be replicated by every game that tries to mimic Elite and Premium. So long as publishers avoid flooding the market with these sorts of premium memberships/subscription services and are able to identify what makes them appealing, I do think there is chance for other franchises to make successful use of them.

Much like announcing DLC before the release of a game in general, Season Pass-type offerings do pose a risk of turning gamers off. Whether fair or not, the availability of DLC creates a perception in the minds of some gamers that the game in question is not a complete experience, but rather one that has been trimmed down so some of its features can be sold to you later at an added cost. That makes the manner in which services likes Premium and Elite are presented especially important. Call of Duty and Battlefield each have the benefit of being games that you expect to see DLC for, although each offers more than just DLC with its supplemental service.

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, EA Labels' Frank Gibeau suggested that, from a content and value standpoint, Premium "exceeds what Elite does." That's a debatable point; from what we've seen so far, purely in terms of the in-game content, I'm inclined to agree Premium's offerings will end up being superior to Elite's. For now that remains to be seen, as each still has a lot of content to deliver. No matter which you think has the better DLC, each service has notable strengths.

Elite gets content out on a monthly basis; since the beginning of the year, subscribers have gotten no less than one new multiplayer map every month, and in some cases, much more. Besides the savings offered over buying the DLC individually, Elite also has events where prizes can be won, giving potential subscribers a way of imagining a set of circumstances that could mitigate the upfront cost. And while I've yet to hear anyone suggest Elite is worth it for access to Call of Duty Elite TV, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman's comedy series, ****ed Hammers, could at least give it something to make non-subscribers envious of.

Premium has laid out what the incoming content is and when it's coming. We may not know all the particulars of what the new modes are and what the settings of the maps will be, but we do know the focus of each and the month it can be expected in, making a Premium membership feel less like it requires blind faith. And, while some could be considered a negative due to upsetting some fans, the ability to get into full servers more quickly with server queue priority is the kind of time-saver that could sell Premium memberships.

Some may loathe the direction the industry is headed in with these kinds of DLC-oriented services -- they certainly do not encourage gamers to spread their money out across multiple games, something that is on the minds of many after what took place yesterday with Radical Entertainment. On the other hand, for those who like to find a game and stick with it for an extended period of time, this trend of keeping games supported with content for an extended period of time should be a welcome one.