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Activision Reveals Call of Duty Subscription Plans
dotarray writes "Activision has denied it and denied it, but now it's been revealed – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will feature an online service (that's what Call of Duty Elite is), complete with monthly subscription fees. 'Activision executives said they haven't yet figured out how much to charge for the service, but they expect the cost to be less than fees for comparable online-entertainment services, such as a $7.99-a-month Netflix Inc. movie subscription. Portions of the service will be free, including features inspired by Facebook Inc. that will let Call of Duty players meet for online gun battles with others who share various affiliations and interests. Another feature of the service will give Call of Duty players tools, modeled on those from stock-trading websites, to analyze their performance within the game, gauging factors such as which weapons have been most successful for them in killing enemies.'"
The number of Call of Duty gamers has plummeted
There is no -1 disagree
Now we can pay a 10,000% markup on what it will cost them to run it! I feel so privileged! I wish more videogame companies would fuck me about the face and neck!!!
I don't per se care about such a feature, but it all depends on the impact it has on non-paying members.
If paying members get benefits over non-paying members (in game), it's a huge no go for me.
I'm not talking about skins or whatever, but better weapons or utilities.
According to the summery, it seems like it's mostly social features and perhaps early access to DLC and addon stuff.
Fine by me then.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
$40-100 for the game depending on your location and currency, then you have to rent to enjoy for $10's over a few months? .. its all free ...
Its all just cute "map packs" content, performance stats, for now... trust us
How long before they get you for free p2p networking vs rent only dedicated servers?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
In what world is chatting with other COD players comparable to Netflix?
Portions of the service will be free, including features inspired by Facebook Inc. that will let Call of Duty players meet for online gun battles with others who share various affiliations and interests.
Because my primary concern when looking for people to shoot in the face, in the conversationally-focused Call of Duty world, is whether they also happen to be fans of Firefly.
This is some hot shit you won't find any place else !!
how long until the subscribed users get better weapons, more XP, etc...
Welcome to your (duty not paid) coffin.
If some players are willing the play monthly fees for these features, it stands to reason most players will want them. Integrate these feature's into YOUR game for free, and thus SELL MORE COPIES.
That is all.
I already pay a monthly charge to talk with other players and keep track of them. It's xbox-live. I will not be paying for additional monthly services for this game. If the non paying members are disadvantaged in gameplay, I will need to find another game.
.. and ongoing subs for new missions is the way forward? Integration with FB etc is nice too but what's to stop online FPS becoming actually a subset of strategy gaming at a higher level?
Activision won't be done until their entire customer base loathes them and thinks they are greedy control-freak imbeciles.
They are modelling themselves on Sony.
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry!
A good thing would have been if Call of Duty went the World of Warcraft way, with people paying for a single subscription to all the content, and no boxed media fees.
Giving content that you have to pay 60$ and then some other content which you will pay externally is stupid, expecially since the CoD/MoH/Battlefield war is continually fought day by day by publishers by shitting out new releases on market, with new maps, weapons, and thus trying to lure in the online players from other communities.
It's an half step in the right direction, but it is a retarded half step and will see Activision fall down the stairs again, Bobby Kotik still does not get the online world at all.
(And yes, remember: he already killed the holy cow of party games).
Large company execs have dollar signs in their eyes. Film at 11.
Bobby Kotick is the fucking plague. He already ruined the Guitar Hero cash cow, and discarded its corpse within months. And COD's dev team too.
It's CODs franchise turn now.
The saddest part of it is that this guy is taking credit for Activisions success in front of the business world, when nothing could be farther from the truth.
Once again... Activision make a HUGE miscalculation: Thinking that the FPS crowd will not view this as another method to milk more cash from players. A service that allows you to meet players, analyse stats (Steam & Xfire), BUT also allows Activision to charge for more content such as map packs.
So, its effectively just a money making ploy to screw more hard earned cash out of consumers. MW3 NEEDS to be perfect for players to want/need to pay for yet another service on top of the predicted DLCs.....
And it won't be.
By my interactions on COD I would say Call of duty plays are the biggest bunch of racist 16 year old cry babies on the planet. They are obsessed with Hitler, cheats, their penis and forced sodomy. I cant imagine paying for a service that increases my personal contact with these increasingly anti-social troglodytes.
If Activision gives the game for free, then this might even work.
Heh. I am sure it will happen.
All Hail the King of FPS's: Battlefield 3!!
Seriously, if you already buy the game (~$65 with tax in the US) and are already paying for XBox Live (~$70 year), why the hell should a gamer have to pay a subscription fee to play online?? Crazy-suckiness. Boooo Activision!!!
This one is next on the death list, after Guitar Hero already died. They're going to milk it to death, and they're pretty much hitting the tip over point now.
They're also hard at work killing WoW with nickel and dime "premium" fees instead of stuff players want, like say new heroics that aren't recycled troll dungeons from previous expansions.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
So I pay a monthly fee and then I get what?..
-map packs: EA will have to sell map packs as a separate DLC as well. They'd be losing a ton of money if they didn't. Not everyone will subscribe.
-Analysis Tools: Big woop, maybe some pro players care about that.
-???? : HAS to be weapon mods of some kind. How else will this subscription make any sense? Take it, it'll piss off people who don't subscribe of course. And if you don't think EA would do something so dumb, just recall the battlefield 2 special forces expansion, which added weapons for only the expansion players in the original maps.
The other option is that the service offers so little difference that only a small minority of pro players buy it....what do you think is more likely?
From TFA, it seems that the only thing that has been decided is that Activision intends to charge monthly for some feature or set of features which does not include multiplayer or whatever Elite is. If the WSJ article is "factually inaccurate", then the only thing the author has to go on is the quote from Activision, which amounts to "we're not going to charge for MP or Elite, but we're going to charge for something."
If they were to charge monthly for something like enhanced Facebook connectivity, or some other social media gewgaw, I don't see anyone paying $5 a month, although I might be underestimating the fanaticism of CoD players. If they charge for access to particular maps, they run the risk of alienating a significant portion of the player base, or of charging for maps that turn out to be less popular due to design, or just due to a lack of players.
I just don't see how this comes out as a net win for Activision.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
EA releases this content for free in their upcoming BF3, just as they have with all their other games since Battlefield 2 via stat trackers and forums.
The more I hear about this game the more excited I am about battlefield 3
Somebody make this. A shooter with Hitler, penises and forced sodomy.
So for anyone who wants to see Activision's pitch for this there's the video below. Note previous ones have been taken down so click and watch the train wreck sooner than later. Kotick and the Derp Cabal, making you pay for what you got for free since Battlefield 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx3mcNabye8&feature=player_embedded
"Another feature of the service will give Call of Duty players tools, modeled on those from stock-trading websites, to analyze their performance within the game, gauging factors such as which weapons have been most successful for them in killing enemies."
So they're charging us for something that we already get for free on Gametracker? Or are they breaking an existing functionality by denying us usage of such sites?
~Syberz
So let me get this straight...you pay Microsoft a fee to use the cable/DSL link you are already paying for, just for the privilege of using XBox Live so you can play Call of Duty...and now they want you to pay yet ANOTHER fee on top of all this? I thought XBox Live was supposed to be so great and wonderful that you'd smile while you hand the house of Gates even more money he doesn't need. So why the additional fee?
I remember the days when people could run their own servers and make their own maps. Guess those days will never come back in the current console-addicted climate.
Now I can finally kill all my future plans on buying any CoD game.
I have been kicked in the nuts over and over and over. But finally they give me the carrot I need to stop giving them my money.
Sure if I get an evolving world to play in (like MMORPG's) I could pay. But to just play normal games with campers/cheaters/teamkillers in random non dedicated servers I could just continue to play old CoD's.
Give me kind of an free dedicated server in the mix. Then $8 might not be bad... And then Hell froze...
- Guys, COD brings boatloads of money, but how could we bring even more ?
- We could do like that Warcraft thing, monthly subscriptions!
- Awesome idea! But we can't put goblins in COD, can we? What's it people like beside goblins and big cows with axes?
- Errr... Mhhh... Hey, people love Facebook... we could, make a subscription only CODfacebook! We'll be rich, rich !!
So, I can pay to get a game that does what BadCompany 2 already does for free?
Sign me up! How can I lose?
HAHAHA FUCK YOU COD FAGS!
Battlefield FOR THE FUCKING WIN!!!
If they would get off their deadbeat asses and get the hackers out of Black Ops the game would be fun. Nothing wrecks a game like hackers. I think the problem is their prestige system. You level to 50, then reset back to level 1 for each level of prestige, and there is 15 levels. That's 750 levels unless my math is off this morning. I think you get tools that will blast away with hacks so they can prestige up. Of course they just might be a bunch of no skill punks with mommy's credit card to buy it from www.callofdutyhacks.com. Its probably a combination of the two.
Until they can prove they can keep these punk cocksuckers out, they can forget getting my dollar.
BUT, if that is what it takes to insure my game is hacker free, I would pay twice that.
Take the Red Pill.
I suspect it's not the dev team that are behind decisions like these. After all, they have an interest in keeping the franchise alive, not milking it for short term gain.
It seems like a bad idea, but really it probably won't be. Yes, if you get a competitive edge over other players I can see this as being a problem. But let's try to look at the positive aspects here (as hard as it is.)
Think about DLC. If you get DLC for free with COD elite (probably not, but it would be smart of activision) and there are 2 (minimum) DLC released a year, and the COD Elite package is 5/month, 60/year, then you really are only paying 30/year, or 2.50/month and then 2 DLC packages ($15usd each.) Not a horrible price.
Now, if you need to pay for this service for each subsequent COD game, then this will fail. If, however, with one membership it works for all future installments of COD, then this isn't so much a bad idea. As with each game that gets released you are getting more for your money. If the services actually empower you to make better decisions in battle (not a direct competetive edge) and access to cool additional content, this could be a win win for all parties. Activision needs to stop at a certain point though, and not be a greedy little bleeotch.
I'm hoping that a couple thousand gamers (there will be a few) paying a monthly fee will give them motivation to address cheating within their games. MW2 was a joke with the majority of matches ruined by cheaters, and Activision doing nothing to address the issue. I refuse to buy Black Ops and support a company that does not support their games.
If you buy into this, you are a sucker.
So essentially they want to charge a monthly fee for stat tracking and pre-match chat? HLstats and similar stat trackers have been around for the PC market for over 10 years now. Pre-match chat isn't exactly a new novelty either.
Yet another example of a greedy company charging for "features" that have been around free for years...
M$ should stand some ground or make it so you don't need x-box live for games with there own fees.
Battlefield 3 anyone?
I suspect it's not the dev team that are behind decisions like these. After all, they have an interest in keeping the franchise alive, not milking it for short term gain.
Given that four or five key developers left IW last spring (2010), probably the only ones left are either those who can't get work elsewhere, or the suck-ups that are yes-men.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
This decision literally marks the beginning of the end for the Call Of Duty franchise. You know there is vast desperation within activision when they are now charging for a glorified "statistic tracker"
"...gauging factors such as which weapons have been most successful for them in killing enemies."
Aren't these the sorts of stats that most games give you for free right now? I don't play MW online, but I seem to recall TF2 and similar death-match titles giving you boatloads of stats about how much you used each weapon and how many kills you got with them. But I never though that information improved my game. I knew what weapons I was best with. If you can't figure that out on your own, having the raw stats isn't going to help you.
I realize that Activision is partnered with Blizzard and have felt the success of subscription based gaming, however they highly over estimate how much PS3/Xbox gamers love Call of Duty and how different it is from WoW. As a avid PS3 gamer who owned Call of Duty Black Ops and previous Call of Duties, I can honestly say if this is what they go to I simply won't buy the game since there are other first person shooter military options such as EA's Battlefield and SOCOM which is a 3rd person shooter made by Sony in coordination with Zipper. Activision is comparing CoD to WoW which you can't WoW has the market cornered which is why a subscription works, CoD doesn't, and I was planning to buy the new Battlefield anyway since the graphics look better. As for others when it was discussed last night while I was playing online with my friends, everyone agreed on the fact that they weren't paying the money and would buy a different game.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
I'll just keep playing Team Fortress 2 and get all of those features and updates for free.
My friends and I will do what we've always done: purchase games that allow for LAN play, grab a network switch and a dozen ethernet cables, and play Unreal Tournament 2004/3/Starcraft/HL2:DM, and whatever other games we've got lying around that allow us to play the mods and maps we find online for free. We've never played Call of Duty in any flavor at our LAN parties, and we still have an awesome time.
Support they didn't get with modern warfare 2, which was abandoned after release, except for the occasional money grabbing map pack. Activision will be expected to police hacking and cheating.
"analyze their performance within the game, gauging factors such as which weapons have been most successful for them in killing enemies.'"
So you are going to charge for the same service that Bungie offers to Halo players for free?...why would I want to play MW3?....I'm already paying for xbox live....i'll save my money and wait for the next halo.
I'm not so sure I see the profitable business plan in tacking on a fee to a subset fee of something you already pay for...
I pay for internet, but pay extra to be part of the XBL community. Now there would be another premium for player to be further gated within this already gated community?
Similar to an already mentioned post above, WoW started doing this, and I lasted maybe 4mo into that. Cancelled all accounts, and quit playing; frivolous paid BS, that has no real in-game effects are stupid. If the content gives a valuable bonus, then you'll really see CoD plummet.
(Not that WoW has failed yet or anything)
Something witty.
This seems like a good time to mention this old article: http://www.geeks.co.uk/7282-activision%E2%80%99s-bobby-kotick-hates-developers-innovation-cheap-games-you From that article, this takes the cake: Maybe the choice quotes of the event, though, came when Kotick talked about Activision’s developers; you know, the guys who actually make the stuff he gets so rich from. You’d think he’d have a bit of respect for them, right? Oh no, Kotick’s goal over the past 10 years has been – you couldn’t make this up – “to take all the fun out of making video games.” How? By instilling a culture of “scepticism, pessimism, and fear” amongst the company’s staff based around the economic depression and an incentive program that rewards “profit and nothing else”.
... they don't start a trend.
They can bite me. 60 bucks for a game is already a chunk o' change. Plus, I'm 1) terrible at console FPS and therefore prefer the single-player campaign when using Xbox (PC is better for me); 2) I'm close to 40 - the younger folks tend to get pissed pretty quickly when I'm too slow by their metrics, again making me prefer the scripted profanity of the single-player campaign to the dynamically-generated profane content of multi-player. I don't need to subscribe to a service to get cussed out. :)
MP is tons of fun, certainly, but (for me) only with people I know, and I'm not going to pay 8 bucks a month for the "privilege" of socializing with my friends.
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
I am guilty of buying a hat or a key every so often in Team Fortress 2. Essentially i'm essentially paying a couple bucks a month over the year to keep my favorite game going. Of course, that isn't really presented as a subscription. it just happens to fulfill the same role as one.
On top of that, my friends and I run a server (Team Funcom TF2 [no affiliation with funcom the game company anymore], come play it's a great server) we pitch in every year for hosting. So yeah. Someone somewhere is paying for hosting. I really don't expect a company to eternally host game and other servers.
I see nothing wrong with their model. Of course if they want people to continue to pay, they have to put out something that's good. Hardly anybody thinks they are wasting their money if they feel they are getting something good in return.
Sounds like the service which came free with Halo.
I'd be okay with a ESEA type of deal with Call of Duty whereby keeping stats like FPR(Frags Per Round) and other stats for a premium, but the servers better be damn good and host modifiable. For example the first person to connect to an empty server(or full in CoD's case) can choose the type of game/rules. I know thats alot more in depth but im sure they could find a way to do it.
http://www.esportsea.com
Long live Battlefield franchise! I stopped buying CoD games when they released at $59.99 versus $49.99.
I was about to throw my xbox out the window, until I noticed this was for the Activision release. You know, the guys who ruined the CoD franchise.
Wake me when the Infinity Wars guys make a move. My casual clan of sorts all bought Black Ops, played it for a few weeks, hated it throughout for having a clumsy, laggy feel, and went right back to MW2, out of which we still play "the fuck". We even got the newcomers to buy MW1, which shows its age yet it still more fun than Black Ops.
So whenever the guys who made MW1 and 2 make another shooter, that will be "news for nerds". Activision is in the business of taking outsourced turds and passing them off as blockbusters.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
EA is releasing Battlefield 3 soon. As much as I enjoyed MW2, I will not purchase another Activision game. They have built their business on screwing over developers and customers. EA is not much better. It's sort of like voting for President at this point.. the lesser of two evils.
As much as I hate Activision's fuckhead CEO Bobby Kotick, there's a reason he's still in the job despite the hate which comes his way from the PC community - he knows how to extract more and more money from people. Sure there will be some people who boycott CoD (seriously this time), but they will be totally outnumbered by those who open their wallets for stat monitoring.
Mainstream gaming has arrived. Don't you just love it?
Call of Duty DON'T host servers - essentially they just want some free money you're wasting on shit like Netflix.
what a joke.. as if the mw2 debacle wasn't enough.. short ass campaign with a story that made no sense, no dedi servers, with no votekick, full to the brim with hackers.. not to mention overpriced expansions that are just maps that should have been included with the release... activision has gone from a company that published really cool games (remember battlezone?), to a company that seems to be more adept at pissing off their customers than making good games...
so now, I should pay 60 dollars for a substandard product, and then pay a monthly fee to play what i paid for? i don't motherfuckin think so
i'll be playing battlefield 3 thankyouverymuch
at least EA has the good sense to listen to their customers
christ i hate activision