Battlefield 3 sells 5 million in one week

By Fred Dutton Published 31 October, 2011

It's the fastest-selling game in EA's history.

Battlefield 3 sold a whopping five million copies in its first week on sales, according to internal EA estimates, making it the publisher's fastest selling game ever.

EA's announcement added that, while some players have complained of intermittent service disruption online "due to high volume", it reckons servers and service uptime stabilised to roughly 98.9 per cent over the weekend.

A good number of players certainly have been able to get online - EA reported that gamers have executed 73 million savior kills, 48 million revives and destroyed 67 million vehicles since launch.

"From Tokyo to Los Angeles, Sydney to London, millions of fans have been playing all weekend long - we are overwhelmed by the global response to Battlefield 3," said EA exec Patrick Soderlund.

"It is extremely gratifying to deliver an entertainment experience that delights our fans, and to have the opportunity to introduce new people to the franchise. Already, we are seeing unprecedented play times and online activity which is very rewarding. This launch solidifies Battlefield as a leading entertainment brand."

Late last week EA claimed that it had shipped 10 million copies to retailers, with many stores apparently already looking to re-stock.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 6 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • silversun #1 7 months ago

    congrats to them.
    Reading this i just wondering about the games industry as a whole i think if a game sells a million or even a 100,000 it could still be successful.
    Huge number like this for battlefeild and other games like call of duty show that some games are mainstream to all while i feel some other have strong following but will never sell as much as the call of duty or battlefield games.

    My worry is that what happens if another big games comes out they ship 10 or even 20 million copies and then dont end up selling what they expect in the future.
    I talking about really big games even dance games can come under this.

    The games industry will be really different in 10 years time i can tell and it all down to how well big budget games are selling atm.

  • octo #2 7 months ago

    There is only one game for me this Christmas: Elder Scrolls V. This is purely because I prefer the single player experience and games that tell a great story. I don't have enough time to sink in to any multiplayer games to become remotely good enough to be anything other than cannon fodder. Especially games where half the experience is in the multiplayer.

  • jablonski #3 7 months ago

    I always think when COD's release date (and now BF3) has passed "thank fuck for that, EG can actually report on other games for a couple of months"

    ...but then I remember the weeks and weeks of PR sales figure 'news'

  • Xardan #4 7 months ago

    Let the cashcow commence!

    Seriously though this is not good news.

    Now we have two very dominant FPS in the market and looks like it will be like that for some time.

  • Paul_cz #5 7 months ago

    BLOPS sold that in 1 day...
    And I am a bit worried MW3 could sell that in 12 hours. People are just insane.

    I want to live in universe where, say, Witcher 2 or Dark Souls sell in these numbers :/

  • Pinky_Floyd #6 7 months ago

    If Carlsberg made online multiplayer shooters, BF3 would be the result.

  • layleeloo #7 7 months ago

    If I'd have known about the ABYSMAL AI, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have invested.

  • wizlon #8 7 months ago

    I'm getting so sick of hearing people complaining about this and COD selling well, so what, how does it really affect you? They are still going to make other genre's.

    I'm amazed you haven't started to trash Minecraft for getting to "mainstream" yet.

  • gooner77 #9 7 months ago

    explains why the servers are fucked

  • sajtion #10 7 months ago

    most people that bought it thought it was like call of duty game. i feel sad for those who were looking for a refreshing change that now own a totally different game and not even half as good as call of duty.

  • layleeloo #11 7 months ago

    @sajtion hahaha. Dear oh dear

  • gooner77 #12 7 months ago

    anyone else getting major lag on this tonight. just done a series of speedtests and its not my connection

  • Nephirion #13 7 months ago

    I misread this as " Battlefield 3 has 5 million disconnects in one week "

  • Master09 #14 7 months ago

    I'll pick this up later when it goes down in price and server issues fixed. Still having a blast with BF 1943. Im surprised how popular it still is and no problems getting full matches on PSN.

  • makeamazing #15 7 months ago

    @Paul_cz I don't mind if COD/BF3 sells massive numbers, i just want other great games to sell good numbers so that we can have a mix of genres doing well. What with the massive number of high profile games this coming November, i just think some are going to fail hard, when normally they would do ok... which is a shame.

  • obscured021 #16 7 months ago

    I love BF3 but red orchestra 2 is a much better online shooter, its 10 times more hard core.

  • 00.00.01 #17 7 months ago

    @gooner77
    Been having massive lag over the weekend, but this was to be expected. Now however, improvements need to be made.

  • weebl #18 7 months ago

    @sajtion

    I agree with you, even if 13 people don't. When MW3 comes out hopefully they'll reflect on what makes a good multiplayer shooter and embrace "whack-a-mole". For you can have as much fun with that as the soft toy grabbing machine next door.

  • Subdominator #19 7 months ago

    Good for them. Not that good for all the other titles that come out between Battlefield and Modern Warfare 3. Even in the christmas season people don't have unlimited money. Two or three titles always cannibalize the market. I think Naughty Dog and Bethesda will be pretty disappointed by their respective numbers. Maybe even 343 Industries, but Halo Anniversary is sold at budget price, that might help.

    I don't think that some games are mainstream and others are not. It's just the power of marketing. EA bought ads everywhere and advertised the shit out of Battlefield, just like Activision does every year with Call of Duty. And marketing works. See Kinect. These companies don't mind to take 50 million or even 500 million (Microsoft) and buy every ad they can, because in the end these sums are just peanuts. Modern Warfare 3 will generate revenue of 1 billion. Battlefield 3 will end up with at least half of that (for EA it already has, cause they shipped enough units).

    Let's face it: FPS have always been the defining games over the last decade. They are the ones that evolve most in both gameplay (not exactly the gameplay mechanics but stuff like AI, physics, multiplayer) and graphics. Add ads and it's instant profit. I think I am pretty well informed, however I had no idea that Kinect Sports 2 was just released or that a new Sonic game is about to be released. There's just so much going on in these last months of the year. And those who are not willing to buy advertising space for a two digit million amount of money will always fall under the radar.

  • Inmediasress #20 7 months ago

    @silversun
    Well BF needs the 5 million sales, just think about the whole PR campaing and the pissing contest they made.
    That alone consumes probably a few million units of sales if not more.

    Yes it is a pretty sad state the game industry is in but it will change.
    Problem is that (exagarated a bit) it will only change once they homogenized all genres into shooters and notice that sales have decreased.
    Then they will come forth with RPG and RTS goodness to a generation that only remembers it from some internet myth and claim they invented something new and then the circle begins again.

  • murphy1978 #21 7 months ago

    The UK Charts people press release says that "BF3 begins life as the 10th biggest UK all formats week 1 seller (units) and 9th by revenue" and I'm quite sure FIFA 12 had more noise made and was higher up the chart, if I recall correctly.

    I'll look through my previous releases.
    Edited by murphy1978 at 01/11/11 @ 07:55

  • aidey6 #22 7 months ago

    @murphy1978 I believe that you're correct. The last two COD games are 1 & 2 with FIFA 12 3rd, 4th GTA IV. Good work by EA/DICE shifting that many units

  • reeferchief #23 7 months ago

    And while 5 million people rushed out to buy this a tumbleweed rolled past my door.

  • TenderChicken #24 7 months ago

    One of my most anticipated games of all-time; and one that didn't dissapoint. When the servers are up (which is the vast majority of the time now) its just an absolute joy to play. It deserves every sale it gets in my eyes.

    And for the people willing games like Dark Souls to sell 5 million +, you'd just end up moaning about it if it did. Remember when BF3 was first announced? Champion of the hardcore, before bafflingly becoming a target of Call of Duty-style hatred before it even released.
    Edited by TenderChicken at 01/11/11 @ 09:38

  • tulx #25 7 months ago

    @obscured021 And ArmA II is ^2 more hardcore than Red Orchestra. :D

  • rob_of_the_robots #26 7 months ago

    "Not that good for all the other titles that come out between Battlefield and Modern Warfare 3. Even in the christmas season people don't have unlimited money. Two or three titles always cannibalize the market."

    Maybe some publishers should have released their games during the barren summer months then when Zumba was ruling the charts.

  • DAN.E.B #27 7 months ago

    Pinky_Floyd

    "If Carlsberg made online multiplayer shooters, BF3 would be the result"

    If Fosters made single player shooters,BF3 would be the result
    I do love this game but the single player is weak!

  • Matfink #28 7 months ago

    "servers and service uptime stabilised to roughly 98.9 per cent"
    Was that before or after the big freakin Origin authentication FAIL?!

  • layleeloo #29 7 months ago

    @weebl and @sajtion

    Two people who obviously havn't even played BF3. At least reserve slating something until you have experienced it - rather than blatant, ignorant CoD bumming :)

  • balloonman #30 7 months ago

    Post deleted at 19:41:17 13-12-2011

  • zune_lai #31 6 months ago

    @silversun
    100,000 is not successful to make a decent profit u need the game to sell at least 500,000. It depends too like if its a ios game obviously. But games in general are getting more expensive to make :(