AMD Paid Up To $8 Million For Battlefield 4 Exclusivity

During trade shows, during promotional pieces, trailers, product placements and reveals, one game has been used by Advanced Micro Devices throughout 2013 to let people know just how badass their peripherals are... Battlefield 4. Well, there's a reason for that and it's because they paid a hefty sum for that kind of promotional exclusivity.

According to Battlefield 4 Central, they're reporting that estimates gauge the deal to have fallen within the range of $5 million to $8 million for Electronic Arts' upcoming first-person shooter. It's one of the rare instances where EA wasn't paying out of their own butthole to promote the game, but instead are being paid to have the game promoted for them. Talk about a run of good luck, eh?

The real highlight is that Battlefield 4 is one of the first major AAA titles to receive exclusive Mantle support as part of AMD's new push for a low-level API.

AMD originally announced Mantle alongside the R9 290X video card, which is basically being promoted as AMD's Titan-killer. The whole point of Mantle is to bypass a lot of the complex and OS-heavy software infrastructures that can slow down and hamper optimization for games. This means that developers can use Mantle to get console-equivalent optimization out of AMD Radeon graphics cards. Both EA and Activision have also signed on to use Mantle in all their upcoming AAA titles.

Given that AMD is providing the graphics and processing components for the Xbox One and PS4, this is actually perfect news for gamers because it means that PC ports will be optimized just as well as the console counterparts. For Battlefield 4 this means that the game will supposedly run smoother, better and will have all the latest in graphics and shader effects without having to go through the traditional DirectX barrier.

The deal between EA and AMD will extend throughout the year (though details on when the contract expires wasn't entirely clear). We can continue to expect to see Battlefield 4 used at the few remaining trade shows and conventions left, and you can bet your bottom dollar that leading up to November we'll see plenty of Battlefield 4 across promotional material to help get gamers amped up for the fall release of the highly anticipated shooter.

For now, gamers can settle for participating in the Battlefield 4 beta.... a beta, I might add, that Gaming Blend's Ryan Winslett wasn't all too thrilled about. Nevertheless, you can check out the AMD-powered Battlefield 4 trailer below and remember to keep an eye out for the game as it preps to launch across current generation consoles, next-generation consoles and PC this November.

For more information on Battlefield 4 feel free to pay a visit to the game's official website.