Call of Duty's new optional online fee

[Protoman]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...423496054.html


Activision will be trying a new monthly fee with the release of MW3 coming out later this year. Activision also owns Blizzard and has seen how willing players are to pay for a monthly fee to play their favorite games.

Would you pay a monthly subscription fee for WoW, CoD, and Xbox live?

Do you think it's fair for Activision to go from just paying for map packs to a full on monthly fee?

Discuss.


IMO this disturbing trend will just mean more companies are going to try and go this route and force players to pay monthly fee's in order to get the complete gaming experience. Even if adult gamers won't pay multiple fees, younger (12-18) gamers who have parent's to fund their activities will and that will be enough to try and push this concept to other online multiplayer console games.

Mod Edit: The monthly fee is not required to go online. It is used to for map packs and other unannounced features. They haven't announced whether or not you can still buy the map packs individually.

[Ozzy1346]

lmao they are so ridiculous. BF3 is gonna DESTROY mw3 now.

shame i was excited for mw3, guess im a battlefield player now.

[TooNasty]

Yeah I was really looking forward to this game. Sad day.

[Deleted]

Well I was going to wait till after launch to see if MW3 was worthy of my money, guess I don't need to bother now.

[Horrify]

Read the article. There's a monthly fee for "Call of Duty Elite," which isn't the actual game. It's an optional feature that you can choose to use.

That being said, the fact that they're charging monthly fees for any part of the game is a very bad sign.

From the article:

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...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.

[Deleted]

lmao they are so ridiculous. BF3 is gonna DESTROY mw3 now.

shame i was excited for mw3, guess im a battlefield player now.

It is still unlikely as the franchise holds far too many fanboys unfortunately. I would rather the lowest common denominator player stick to COD as opposed to muddying the battlefield waters anyway.

[soulkeeperx]

You'll be able to play online if you don't pay the extra fee, just not on any new maps they come out with...which still doesn't excuse a monthly fee for an XBOX 360 SHOOTER

[Deleted]

Read the article. There's a monthly fee for "Call of Duty Elite," which isn't the actual game. It's an optional feature that you can choose to use.

That being said, the fact that they're charging monthly fees for any part of the game is a very bad sign.

Charging for map packs on PC was only the beginning, combining that with no 3rd party support whatsoever is just worrying.

[Flaks]

This should put the 'oh its a company maximizing profits' bunch to rest about Activision not being greedy bastards.

I kinda wish WoW had never reached more than 5 million players so it might have flown under the Activision radar.

[Porimlys]

I like how people are angry about this but not angry that they've been re-releasing the same CoD over and over again with a new name/number for years now.

[Caiada]

"Activision's Blizzard division"

From the article. That's just horrible writing and misinformation.

More on topic though... It is a really bad sign for gaming, but it's not yet that bad.

I'm not defending them. This is silly and unneeded, and unless the integration is revolutionary, it will flop.

[Gindry]

they're pretty good at milking money with the pet store.. if someone buys a 25 dollar friggen mount on a game that they pay 15 a month for... then i can't see why people wouldnt spend 5 bucks a month for MW3 and all of its benefits (possibly getting all map packs included)

[Reapermd]

While a bad sign of what to come at least you can still play online with out paying. Which I think most people don't realize. Hopefully so few people will subscribe to elite that they don't try further payment features.

[Deleted]

I like how people are angry about this but not angry that they've been re-releasing the same CoD over and over again with a new name/number for years now.

To be honest it pisses me off massively.

The problem being that the majority of other studios are so incompetent that call of duty hasn't even had to try since COD 4 was released. Yes other studios bring nice ideas to the table but they wrap it all up in a messy package.

[Cows For Life]

Read the article. There's a monthly fee for "Call of Duty Elite," which isn't the actual game. It's an optional feature that you can choose to use.

That being said, the fact that they're charging monthly fees for any part of the game is a very bad sign.

From the article:

Come on. Don't be naive. You've seen what Activision has done and you've heard what they've said and you know how MBA's think. You know where this is going.

[Yosef1015]

the fee is for additional content, you don't need to pay it to play the game, just for extra maps and other garbage.
although this will still probably make me not buy the game. Gears 3 ftw.

[Deleted]

While a bad sign of what to come at least you can still play online with out paying. Which I think most people don't realize. Hopefully so few people will subscribe to elite that they don't try further payment features.

Like DLC map packs that were a free mainstay of PC gaming for years and years? Even within the Call of duty franchise it was PC gamers that made them big and became used to additional maps, now suddenly we have to pay for them? Seems a bit cheeky don't you think?

[Mega Gengar]

Yeah, I was planning on buying this along side BF3, now I'm not. This is the final straw, no more CoD games for me.

[pickley]

lmao they are so ridiculous. BF3 is gonna DESTROY mw3 now.

shame i was excited for mw3, guess im a battlefield player now.

Isnt BF made by EA?
Looking forward to paying $10 to play online when i buy a used copy...

[Deleted]

the fee is for additional content, you don't need to pay it to play the game, just for extra maps and other garbage.
although this will still probably make me not buy the game. Gears 3 ftw.

Has the Gears franchise bothered to do anything past cover based shooting yet? The first one got boring after 2 hours, it was like time crisis except you don't get to hold a gun.