The heated battle between Activision and EA over their respective big budget modern military first-person shooter franchises that sell lots of copies appeared to be dying down a bit in recent months, but today's accidental announcement of a new weapon in the Call of Duty/Battlefield 3 arms race seems poised to rekindle the flames of acrimony.
Earlier, a European PlayStation blog entry and a leaked fact sheet posted on NeoGAF outed a new Battlefield 3 Premium service that sounds suspiciously similar to Activision's Call of Duty Elite service. And now EA has essentially confirmed that the service exists, while not quite confirming all the leaked details.
The Premium service is reportedly a one time $50 fee that grants immediate access to all current and forthcoming Battlefield 3 DLC expansions, as well as a few other perks, which include such gems as:
- Unique in-game items, like a knife, and special dog tags, and specialized soldier and weapon camouflage.
- 2 weeks of early, exclusive access to all future Battlefield 3 expansion packs.
- Access to exclusive "Double XP Weekends"
- The ability to reset all of your stats.
- Priority access to server queues (translation: jump ahead of the non-paying gutter trash!)
EA says to keep an eye on Battlefield.com come June 4, presumably so you can have all the same information posted here reiterated to you, but perhaps in a neater and tidier press release format that will include quotes from executives heralding the unprecedented successes of Battlefield 3 and explaining how this Premium service is great for fans because it has things in it.
EA hasn't exactly been shy regarding its turgid feelings over Call of Duty's Elite service. Specifically, its ability to wring extra dollars out of the pockets of those who simply must have everything the game has to possibly offer. And now EA has their own version of that, which is great for them, I guess. You, the consumer? Probably not. But EA? They're good.