It’s been about a week since PC players got a huge Battlefield 3 patch which brought a ton of changes to the game, including bug fixes, balance tweaks, and more. Now DICE has released the patch for PlayStation 3, which deals with many of the same issues. The PS3 patch weighs in at a heft 758 MB. You can find the full list of changes after the break. READ ON »

Battlefield 3 has been out for about a month now, and EA Chief Financial Officer Eric Brown revealed during a technology conference in San Francisco that Battlefield 3 has sold 8 million copies to date. Previously, EA announced that Battlefield 3 had sold 5 million copies during its first week on the market.

Brown also revealed that the game has shipped 12 million units worldwide.

There’s a lot of anticipation for the upcoming and first Battlefield 3 DLC/expansion, called Back to Karkand. While EA has teased us with several trailers and lots of screenshots, they’ve yet to confirm the release date for Back To Karkand. But according to a Sony page, the release date has finally been revealed.

Sony’s Asia PlayStation Store lists Battlefield 3 Back To Karkand with a release date on December 7, 2011. Since PlayStation 3 owners will get Back to Karkand (and all other DLC) one week earlier, that means that Back To Karkand will hit the PC and Xbox 360 platforms on December 14.

For more on the expansion, check out our Back to Karkand page, which has all the vehicles, maps, weapons and everything you need to know about Back to Karkand.

Last week we heard from Iranian gamers who were upset how Battlefield 3′s story portrayed the country in the singleplayer campaign, where Iranian terrorists get hold of a nuclear weapon.

Now Battlefield 3 has been banned in Iran completely, and not only that, videogame shops have been raided and there are reports of some shopkeepers being arrested for selling the game secretly.

Some 5,000 Iranian gamers recently signed a petition to stop Battlefield 3 from being sold in Iran, which is quite ironic, considering that Battlefield 3 has never been officially released in Iran, and those copies that are circulating are in fact pirated copies. EA released a statement, saying:

“In that Battlefield 3 is not available for purchase in Iran, we can only hope the ban will help prevent pirated copies reaching consumers there”

Nevertheless, Iranian gamers believe that because of the strained relationship between Iran and the West, Battlefield 3 casts another shadow over Iran, despite it being entirely fictional.

We recently posted high res Battlefield 3 ribbon images, and today we’ve got the medals for you — all in high resolution quality. There are 50 medals in total in Battlefield 3. Full gallery after the break. READ ON »

A few weeks ago we saw a Back to Karkand trailer showcasing Strike At Karkand for Battlefield 3, and this time, EA released a trailer for another Back To Karkand map: Gulf Of Oman, which looks just as impressive. Back to Karkand will be released in December, for more details, check out our full Back To Karkand page, which has all the info you need.

If you’d like to contribute, send your screenshots to screenshot[at]bf3blog.com. By submitting screenshots, you acknowledge that we can post them on bf3blog.com.

EA has previously had some issues where players who have been banned on the forums have had their ban extend to the EA accounts and all games associated with it. The latest incident involves a Battlefield 3 player who was banned for 72 hours for playing the game after he posted a forum message on Battlelog containing the word “badass”. He then received the following email from EA:

“Hello ,

Your Electronic Arts account has been suspended for 72 hours for violating the Terms of Services for Electronic Arts Online.

Violation:Inappropriate language

[almost as badass as germany. Switzerland: they do a lot of stuff I think that just about sums up europe.]“

It’s odd that EA would ban a player for using a word like “badass”, while Battlefield 3 itself has some of the most offensive swearing ever seen in a game, both in the singleplayer and especially the voice over in multiplayer. We dunno if there were other factors involved in the decision to ban, but it does seem like an overreaction, especially considering the content of Battlefield 3.

Via Reddit

If you’d like to contribute, send your screenshots to screenshot[at]bf3blog.com or use our contact form. By submitting screenshots, you acknowledge that we can post them on bf3blog.com.

We’re back with another Battlefield 3 contest, and this time we’ve teamed up with popular game server provider ArtOfWarCentral. We’ll be giving away one month free 32-player Battlefield 3 game servers to ten (10) lucky winners.

To enter the contest, you can do two things: follow BF3Blog on Twitter and retweet this post, or you can post a comment on this post where you tell us your favorite Battlefield 3 map. You can increase your chances of winning by both retweeting and commenting

In addition, if you’re in business for a game server, ArtOfWarCentral is currently running a Black Friday promotion, where you can get up to 35% off of any game server by using the promo code: “blackfriday”.

The contest ends on Wednesday, November 30, 2011.