In an effort to expand their online services and open up new monetization streams, Electronic Arts and DICE have introduced a premium service for
Battlefield 3 that allows users to rent and manage their own dedicated servers.
This announcement marks an unprecedented shift for EA, as the company has never directly taken part in managing player-operated servers for the
Battlefield series. Until now, players could only rent servers through approved third party affiliates.
With this recent update, however, EA has taken that business into its own hands, and has thus established a new way to gain revenue from the sizeable
Battlefield 3 audience. This update will also allow console players on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 to rent custom servers for the first time.
According to the
official Battlefield 3 website, dedicated servers across all platforms are available for $1.50 per day.
Once players rent a server, they can gain the opportunity to customize their
Battlefield 3 games to their liking. They will be able to alter game rules, change map rotations, ban unwanted players, and even appoint VIPs so players can skip server queues.
Battlefield 3 server rentals are now available across PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.
