Battlefield 3 almost required a monthly subscription

[xaeleep]

This will be a rather short post of what I think is unknown Battlefield trivia.

 

At some point during the development of Battlefield 3, having/requiring a monthly subscription was apparently considered. I've never seen this mentioned publicly, but I am not the biggest Battlefield fan, so I apologise if this is already known to some extent.

 

This is something I briefly discussed with a person who worked at ESN Social Software, who were involved with the development of Battlelog. This was back in the summer of 2012, shortly after the company was bought by EA. I don't know too much more but as I’ve never mentioned this to anyone publicly and since enough time has probably passed in order for this to be wholly uncontroversial, I figured someone might find it interesting.

 

Cheers.

[Mateyyy]

Well that would've ruined the best game in the series for me.

[Orangeator]

Interesting, glad they decided against it. The world would have definitely rejected such a model back in 2012. Maybe today they could get away with it, but it would receive intense backlash. Just think about Star Wars Battlefront II...

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

2 hours ago, xaeleep said:

This will be a rather short post of what I think is unknown Battlefield trivia.

 

At some point during the development of Battlefield 3, having/requiring a monthly subscription was apparently considered. I've never seen this mentioned publicly, but I am not the biggest Battlefield fan, so I apologise if this is already known to some extent.

 

This is something I briefly discussed with a person who worked at ESN Social Software, who were involved with the development of Battlelog. This was back in the summer of 2012, shortly after the company was bought by EA. I don't know too much more but as I’ve never mentioned this to anyone publicly and since enough time has probably passed in order for this to be wholly uncontroversial, I figured someone might find it interesting.

 

Cheers.

I don't think subscription based games isn't much of a problem as long as game developers can push enough content that makes that subscription worth while. And we've seen the ugly side when the communities don't feel like they've gotten their money's worth. If you look at Destiny 2 over the past few seasons, it has been met with anger and disappointment because everyone including season pass holders got a lackluster of a game. The season was littered with connection issues, progress halting bugs, and game modes that was overrun with cheating. But if such issues weren't present, I think people would be very happy to pay for a subscription. Because that would almost guarantee fresh content. But if content is "half baked", you're going to loose players immediately. 

 

[xaeleep]

4 hours ago, Orangeator said:

Interesting, glad they decided against it. The world would have definitely rejected such a model back in 2012. Maybe today they could get away with it, but it would receive intense backlash. Just think about Star Wars Battlefront II...

I have a hard time seeing a subscription model for that type of game working even today. Assuming the road map for Battlefield 3 would've been the same.