Daily WTF Moment - May 31, 2011

[MedicSN6]

'Call of Duty' Sets Sights on a Fee

 

Consumers are used to paying $60 each for videogames that run on consoles like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Now the publisher behind the industry's biggest videogame franchise— "Call of Duty"—is about to find out whether it can get them to pay a monthly bill, too.

 

Activision Blizzard Inc. plans to launch an online service called Call of Duty Elite this fall that will work with the next major edition of the game, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3," and future installments of the hyper-realistic combat-simulation game. In a move industry executives describe as a first, Activision plans to charge a monthly subscription fee for the service, which will provide extra content that isn't offered on game discs sold in stores, including downloadable map packs that give players new "Call of Duty" levels to play.

 

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 plan—which comes a week ahead of the videogame industry's big E3 trade show in Los Angeles—is a potentially risky bet by Activision that it can further milk profits from consumers, who could feel the $60 they spend on "Call of Duty" in stores is enough. Charging a monthly subscription fee is more common for multiplayer games that run on personal computers. The most successful of those is "World of Warcraft," a fantasy game from Activision's Blizzard division that has over 11 million subscribers, who typically pay $15 a month for the service.

 

For players with a Microsoft Corp. Xbox 360 console, a Call of Duty Elite subscription will come on top of the $9.99 monthly fee they typically pay for Xbox Live, the online game service that provides players of all Xbox games to meet and compete against others online. Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 console owners don't pay a monthly fee to play against others online.

 

The PlayStation Network that provides those multiplayer capabilities recently suffered an outage of more than three weeks after a hacker intrusion on the service. Players of PC versions of "Call of Duty" don't pay to play others online.

More on Activision and 'Call of Duty'

 

In an interview, Activision Chief Executive Bobby Kotick said he isn't worried about pushback from gamers about the Call of Duty Elite fee because players will still be able to compete against each other online without subscribing to the service. While he is coy about many of the offerings that will be included in the service, Mr. Kotick said Call of Duty Elite, and the customer-service operation that will be needed to support it, wouldn't be possible if the service was free. "This is an enormous investment," he said.

 

"Call of Duty" is in a unique position to seek a monthly fee from customers. The game's previous installment, set during the Cold War and called "Call of Duty: Black Ops," was the best-selling game last year, with global retail sales of more than $1 billion during its first six weeks on shelves.

 

Since Activision first began publishing the series almost eight years ago, it has accounted for more than $3 billion in retail sales, according to the company. Unlike hit movies, new versions of "Call of Duty" come out every year, with "Modern Warfare 3" due to arrive in stores Nov. 8.

 

"It's probably the biggest entertainment franchise in the world," said Dennis Durkin, corporate vice president in Microsoft's interactive-entertainment business.

 

Just as important is the degree to which "Call of Duty" has become the biggest online-game hit on consoles. While many gamers still play the old-fashioned way—by themselves against enemies operated by the game itself—"Call of Duty" has been the most successful console game at getting players to battle other human-operated opponents over the Internet.

 

Jamie Berger, Activision's vice president of digital for "Call of Duty," said the company has about seven million daily players of the game who spend, on average, about seven full days a year playing the game against others online. Players often use headsets to communicate verbally with other online gamers.

 

Like other publishers, Activision has earned money selling "Call of Duty" map packs and other digital content for one-time charges, but subscriptions to its new service could give it a continuing way to capitalize on the online popularity of the game.

 

Rob Dyer, senior vice president of publisher relations at Sony's U.S. games division, said only a few games have the audience loyalty and size to support a subscription service like Call of Duty Elite. Mr. Dyer said he is "very confident" other publishers will follow Activision's lead. "There's money to be made there," he said.

 

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355310423496054.html

 

 

 

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It sounds to me like they are really planning this and it's not just a "maybe we'll do this thing." My personal feeling is that if I have to pay 60 bones just to get a license to play the game, that's enough already. As a PC Gamer, my cost in being able to play the game at the best settings is FAR greater than a Console player. To have me pay a monthly fee for a game that will be dying or dead (like MW:2) in less than 6 months, after I have already paid for a system that will run it, I find to be ridiculously unfair.

 

We could talk about how MMOs, which I am no stranger to, and how they cost money up front for the retail box expansion and then have a monthly fee on top of it, and to that I would say that those companies who produce, lets say the top ten MMOs, are damn good at it. They release patches frequently and try to balance the game as much as possible. Through out the history of FPS games, we have seen how unbalanced FPS games are, whether its an unbalanced map, the weapons, the hitbox design, having to play the game for hours upon hours to achieve certain unlockables which level the playing field (particularly difficult if you have a life), false ballistics in the game, or just plain old lag. Too many factors are involved on the PC gaming end that affect your FPS gaming experience and we haven't even touched upon the sometimes overwhelming problems with DRM and anti-cheat software like Punkbuster.

 

What it all boils down to is milking the consumer for as much as possible. "A fool and his money are soon separated."

[MH6~SPARTA~]

The CoD series went into the shitter with CoD: Modern Warfare (the first one).

 

I really hope people realize this and stop spending money on a shit series.

[SkeleTele~SPARTA~]

F@#k call of doody IMO

[Watchman~SPARTA~]

MW was my first foray into the world of CoD, as a competitive clan vehicle in th eabsence of a genuine GR repalcement. And for that we had a good time with it, over at BPR. World at War was purchased on the strength of MW and whilst it was enjoyable it didn't stretch the appeal of CoD for me. When MW2 was announced and all the PC foused short comings, dedi servers etc, I called time on the CoD series and this latest news has re-enforced that.

 

I'm just hoping that after BC2, which I enjoyed, BF3 will provide me with a good quality, playable MP experience for some run-and-gun carnage!

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Thousands of kids are opening up their parents wallets with glee as I type this.

[iron]

"...and future installments of the hyper-realistic combat-simulation game."

 

Did anyone else lol at this?

[Batwing~SPARTA~]

I am in general against monthly fees to play games. Mostly for 2 personal reasons:

 

1 - I consider a shelf price of around 50 - 60 bucks more than enough for a "game"

2 - I am a casual player. I do not spend a huge amount of hours in front of my PC playing and also when I play longer than usual, I do not do it consistently enough to justify a monthly payment for it.

 

With that said, i do respect ppl who enjoys special games apying the extra fee to be part of it.

 

Reading the above message I do understand just one economical manouver. Activision is using the leverage on the public addiction to CoD franchise.

 

As they state above, "It's probably the biggest entertainment franchise in the world," although it comes from a MS corporate, it doesn t make any difference. the statement is probably correct. The only competition is BF I would say.

 

So, when you have a massive quantity of addicted players, break the frontier and sqeeze some extra money from their wallet is extremely easy. It is drug reaction, you are addicted, you pay for it, doesn t matter what. Your mind will find a reasonable justfication to make sense of the monthly fee and you ll buy it

 

This is Activision bet. Unfortunately I am pretty sure they will be successful. I am only scared others can smell profit from this kind of conduct and may start thinking to follow that path.

 

I personally don t care what is the game, I am not gonna spend extra money on it on a monthly basis. Read my signature.

[MedicSN6]

"...and future installments of the hyper-realistic combat-simulation game."

 

Did anyone else lol at this?

 

 

Like this?

http://www.theonion.com/video/ultrarealistic-modern-warfare-game-features-awaiti,14382/

[T_1]

Like this?

http://www.theonion.com/video/ultrarealistic-modern-warfare-game-features-awaiti,14382/

 

LMFAOPIMPROFL etc etc. Brilliant.

[Batwing~SPARTA~]

Oh My.. i forgot about the ONN !! these guys are amazing ! The first video I saw of them was about a new SONY platform... lololl.. do u ever saw that one ??

[Fatal_Papercut~SPARTA~]

I put time into Black Ops MP because I received it as a Christmas gift; perhaps I'll actually play the SP story mode one of these days when I extremely bored, but doing so is certainly not one of my priorities. As for future CoD releases, this announcement just killed any future interest.

[MedicSN6]

I put time into Black Ops MP because I received it as a Christmas gift; perhaps I'll actually play the SP story mode one of these days when I extremely bored, but doing so is certainly not one of my priorities. As for future CoD releases, this announcement just killed any future interest.

 

 

Maybe a topic or talking point for next weeks KOTCC. You had me with this past weekend's notice. Totally had me.

[custard~SPARTA~]

We as a group played MW for a year, fair enough it was a run n gun game mostly but we didn't play it that way and had a blast. With the options of proper dedi servers and user made content (Durka's 'Uday' map is still my favorite user made map and this includes all the fine work by Viii et al with GRAW)it was money well worth paying.

 

Every COD since has been gradually weaker and weaker.

[Rooster90]

The first MW (CoD4) wasn't so bad. I'd call it the last good CoD. Dedicated servers, free SDK for mappers and modders, a great single player campaign. Everything you came to expect from a CoD game (it was still primarily a PC game, I had been playing since the first). From that point on though, they saw how popular it was on consoles and decided to not do anything new or interesting with the series. Same rehashed SP campaigns, similar (and crappy) maps, stupid weapons, zombies, ugh, each release brought more garbage to the mix and did absolutely nothing new or good. CoD4 ushered in a (then) newly updated engine with graphics the likes of which hadn't been seen at such great performances. Now they all use that very same engine FOUR YEARS LATER. Granted, Valve has been milking the Source engine for a lot longer, but they designed it that way and each update to it brings significant change. CoD is still stuck in 2007 era graphics, it's really quite sad to see.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

I don't think they are necessarily weaker, just motivated by more and more money from the looks of it, which is making them weaker I suppose. While making money is a good thing, it's not if it is at the expense of your users. I always thought the expansion pack idea was a good one. You want much more content, you pay a little more money. BIS, I thought, had it right by producing a small map, vehicle and units for $10, while the community made the missions, and everyone could still play together. When you start introducing rougher restrictions, game communities break up because they can't play together, and then the game eventually flounders.

 

I enjoyed the multiplayer aspect of COD, but with no dedi servers, I lost interest. Now, with this, It's barely a blip on my radar.

[Batwing~SPARTA~]

So, this is how IGN explains it:

 

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/117/1171511p1.html

[MedicSN6]

http://theimbagamer.com/2011/05/31/registration-open-for-call-of-duty-elite/

[MedicSN6]

And the fallout begins.... http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/05/call-of-duty-elite-reactions/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+(Wired%3A+Index+3+(Top+Stories+2))

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

LoL at the last part.

 

And I gotta love this post I found in the comment section:

 

THE RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH!