Muffled rumours began doing the rounds last week that gamers might be in for a bit of a shock when the find out how much Battlefield 3’s dedicated servers will cost, with some suggesting that they will be prohibitively expensive, and possibly even not sustainable over an extended period of time.

We are aware that local ISPs are currently in discussion with EA over server details, but official details are scant for now.

However, some confirmation that the servers may be significantly more expensive that we would expect has emerged from UK based server rental company, Multiplayergameservers.com. Gameservers is expected to announce it’s pricing soon.

Multiplayergameservers currently has Battlefield 3 dedicated servers available for pre-order, which means that if you live in the UK, you can already secure your own server for yourself and your buddies.

If you go through Multiplayergameservers, a 64 player Battlefield 3 server will cost you £128.00 (R1480) per month.

For some perspective, a 24 player Battlefield 3 server will set you back £48.00 (R555) per month, which is over double what a 24 player Battlefield: Bad Company 2 server would cost you (R222).

In South Africa, service providers such as iGame, MWEB and Telkom typically pay for and host servers without charging users. Just how Battlefield 3’s high server pricing will affect the local server instal base remains to be seen.

We will be following up with local providers, so what this space for further details on how this will affect South African gamers.

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