Battlefield 4 - Tank Teaser

Battlefield 4 - Tank Teaser Upon release, Battlefield 4 was riddled with major technical bugs, glitches and crashes across all platforms. EA and DICE soon began releasing several patches for the game on all systems and DICE later revealed that work on all of its future games (including Mirror's Edge, Star Wars: Battlefront and Battlefield 4 DLC) would be halted until Battlefield 4 was working properly. In December 2013, more than a month after the game's initial release, an EA representative said, "We know we still have a ways to go with fixing the game – it is absolutely our #1 priority. The team at DICE is working non-stop to update the game."

EA President Peter Moore announced in January 2014 that the company did not see any negative impact to sales as a result of the myriad of technical issues. He said any negative impacts to sales were actually due to the transition from current-generation (PS3, Xbox 360) to next-generation consoles (PS4, Xbox One), and that other video game franchises like FIFA and Need for Speed were experiencing similar effects. As a reward for players who bought the game early and continued to play it despite all of the bugs and glitches, DICE rewarded players in February 2014 with all-month-long, free multi-player content such as: bronze and silver Battlepacks, XP boosts and events, camouflage skins, shortcut bundles for weapons and additional content for Premium members.

Because of the widespread bugs and glitches that were present, EA became the target of multiple law firms. The firm Holzer Holzer & Fistel, LLC launched an investigation into EA's public statements made between July 24 and December 4, 2013 to determine if the company intentionally misled its investors with information pertaining to, "the development and sales of the Company's Battlefield 4 video game and the game's impact on EA's revenue and projects moving forward." Shortly thereafter, the law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP similarly filed a class action lawsuit against EA for releasing false or misleading statements about the quality of Battlefield 4. A second class action lawsuit was announced only days later from the firm Bower Piven, which alleged that EA violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by not properly informing its investors about the major bugs and glitches during development that may have prevented the investors from making an informed decision about Battlefield 4. Bower Piven sought out investors who lost more than US$200,000 to become the lead plaintiff. In October 2014, Judge Susan Illston dismissed one of the class action suits' original case on the grounds that EA did not intentionally mislead investors, instead its pre-release claims about Battlefield 4 were a "vague statement of corporate optimism," "an inactionable opinion" and "puffery."

Six months after the initial release of the game, in April 2014, DICE released a program called Community Test Environment (CTE), which let a limited number of PC gamers play a different version of Battlefield 4 that was designed to test new patches and updates before giving them a wide-release.

In October 2014, nearly a full year after the official release with major updates still being put out, DICE LA producer David Sirland said the company acknowledged that the release of Battlefield 4 "absolutely" damaged the trust of the franchise's fanbase. Sirland said that the shaky release of Battlefield 4 caused the company to reevaluate their release model, and plan on being more transparent and offer earlier beta tests with future installments, namely (at the time) with Battlefield Hardline (2015). Sirland also said: "We still probably have a lot of players who won't trust us to deliver a stable launch or a stable game. I don't want to say anything because I want to do. I want them to look at what we're doing and what we are going to do and that would be my answer. I think we have to do things to get them to trust us, not say things to get them to trust us. Show by doing."