8 million people played the Battlefield 3 beta; preorders top 2 million

With Battlefield 3's open beta now over with, DICE has shared a few stats from the public playtest. Over 8 million players previewed the game's Metro map, and EA has preorders for the final game already exceeding 2 million. DICE puts a few of the bigger numbers into context below: did you know that the number of people stabbed to death in the beta is equivalent to the population of Shanghai? What a morbid thought.

Above: BF3's Sukhoi Su-27, which as you can see isn't made from spent ammo

47 billion shots were fired in the beta, which as DICE points out would generate enough shell casings to build just shy of 4000 Flanker jets. Ever helpful, the dev also reminds readers that none of those jets would fly, because hello, you can't build a fighter plane out of shell casings. The beta's Rush mode focused on destroying M-Com stations, an objective completed successfully around 21 million times – a number equivalent to Twitter's entire active userbase. DICE's graphic breaks down a few more BF3 figures.

Here, Fox Business' Liz Claman gets embedded deep within Videogame Land, where EA Product Manager Kevin O'Leary shares the game's impressive preorder figure. So far it looks like Battlefield 3 might top EA’s previous Call of Duty killer, last year’s Medal of Honor reboot, but we do wonder how those preorder numbers compare to Modern Warfare 3’s.

Oct 18, 2011

Source: Battlefield Blog,1up