So it begins....

[Malakili]

Call of Duty Elite - Subscription fee for CoD MW3.

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

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.

...

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

Editorial note: I literally LOL'd at the "hyper-realistic combat-simulation" part.  Nothing says realism like a twitch shooter that lets you dual wield auto shotguns. 

Anyway, this isn't really surprising, but I do wonder how its going to turn out.   I think this is going to give Battlefield 3 a big edge as long as DICE + EA don't do anything stupid.   Also, if we start seeing sub fees in games like this regularly is the distinction of MMO finally dead altogether?  I'm sure there are some around here that would say its already blurred practically beyond distinction.  Anyway, lets here what you all think.

[kildorn]

So a sub fee for.. extra maps and guns?

Hokay... I could almost buy a sub fee if it was "for access to our hosted servers, which we have shittons of, and this pays for all the bandwidth and hosting costs", but aren't CoD servers essentially adhoc like most console games?

[MisterNoisy]

If the sub fee is something like $2/month, I'd wager they can get away with this - a good chunk of their audience is already paying for XBL, mostly for COD games.  The implementation will make or break this - if the victims get map packs with their sub, they won't care - they already paid $15/5 maps every time they came out anyway.

EA definitely has an opportunity here, though:  If they launch BF3 at the same time with a big ad push and feature-match this CoD premium service for free with hosted servers to boot, they can break CoD's grip on the big shooter market permanently.

[rk47]

Heh, until they release the game with 3 multiplayer maps and 4 guns only with the rest are released over 6 months. Sweet sweet dollars.

[MisterNoisy]

Heh, until they release the game with 3 multiplayer maps and 4 guns only with the rest are released over 6 months. Sweet sweet dollars.

No doubt...  It'll be interesting to see if EA makes the long-term play, which isn't really in their nature...

[kildorn]

If the sub fee is something like $2/month, I'd wager they can get away with this - a good chunk of their audience is already paying for XBL, mostly for COD games.  The implementation will make or break this - if the victims get map packs with their sub, they won't care - they already paid $15/5 maps every time they came out anyway.

EA definitely has an opportunity here, though:  If they launch BF3 at the same time with a big ad push and feature-match this CoD premium service for free with hosted servers to boot, they can break CoD's grip on the big shooter market permanently.

Are the BF series and CoD really after the same market share, though? I mean, more specifically than "they're both shooters"

[MisterNoisy]

If the sub fee is something like $2/month, I'd wager they can get away with this - a good chunk of their audience is already paying for XBL, mostly for COD games.  The implementation will make or break this - if the victims get map packs with their sub, they won't care - they already paid $15/5 maps every time they came out anyway.

EA definitely has an opportunity here, though:  If they launch BF3 at the same time with a big ad push and feature-match this CoD premium service for free with hosted servers to boot, they can break CoD's grip on the big shooter market permanently.

Are the BF series and CoD really after the same market share, though? I mean, more specifically than "they're both shooters"

They're both console-focused online muliplayer modern military shooters with persistent player advancement - I have to imagine that there's a fair amount of crossover.  Lord knows there's room for both, given that BlOps set records for sales in the same year that a subpar MoH offering recouped dev costs many times over, but I have to imagine that if one is charging for what the other offers for free, the flock will migrate to the more cost-effective option.  

If EA plays this right, they'll be able to offer whatever shooter Respawn finally shits out after the litigation is over with the 'From the creators of Modern Warfare' tagline and make moneyhats until the next decade.

[Malakili]

If the sub fee is something like $2/month, I'd wager they can get away with this - a good chunk of their audience is already paying for XBL, mostly for COD games.  The implementation will make or break this - if the victims get map packs with their sub, they won't care - they already paid $15/5 maps every time they came out anyway.

EA definitely has an opportunity here, though:  If they launch BF3 at the same time with a big ad push and feature-match this CoD premium service for free with hosted servers to boot, they can break CoD's grip on the big shooter market permanently.

Are the BF series and CoD really after the same market share, though? I mean, more specifically than "they're both shooters"

I think there is room for both in my play time hypothetically, but I'm not so sure most people have as fine grained a feel for it.   I think they just see army mans, guns, pew pew.  Why would I ever need more than one of those?  The typical CoD or Battlefield player doesn't know what a "twitch" shooter is, or which game uses bullet physics, or what hit scan is, and so on.    Those kind of game mechanics, I suspect, only matter to people who have been playing a long time and really understand what game mechanics are.  I'm not saying this in a derogatory way, its just that I've assumed people see the differences I see before (in games in general, not just these two franchises), only to be looked at like an alien, or to have people INSIST to me that Diablo and WoW (for example) are basically the same game.

Not to mention EA has stated outright several times that they think Battfield 3 is a "CoD killer", so they are at the very least marketing as such.

[Azazel]

I'm sure I read an interview with Kotick (or at least something attributed to him) where he said that he'd like to find a way to attach a subscription fee to CoD's MP. This has the potential to work as well as his consistent exploitation of the Guitar Hero franchise, which basically dug it's own grave. Or something Like Tony Hawk's RIDE.

[Stormwaltz]

Editorial note: I literally LOL'd at the "hyper-realistic combat-simulation" part.

I'm sure Bohemia Interactive did too.

EDIT: When my internet was down on Friday, I pulled out the old Battlefield 1942 discs and played some bot matches. That was the first time I've played a full-fledged FPS since 2006.

[Simond]

I'm sure I read an interview with Kotick (or at least something attributed to him) where he said that he'd like to find a way to attach a subscription fee to CoD's MP. This has the potential to work as well as his consistent exploitation of the Guitar Hero franchise, which basically dug it's own grave. Or something Like Tony Hawk's RIDE.

Or Cataclysm.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Not to mention EA has stated outright several times that they think Battfield 3 is a "CoD killer", so they are at the very least marketing as such.

EA gave me the impression in their BF3 talk ups that they wanted to beat CoD by bringing a more sophisticated PC style Battlefield game to the console masses, not just by having a twitch shooter CoD clone. They are also trying to set a fire on the PC market with a hot shooter that they havent really been able to do since BF2.

From what I've seen so far in the limited previews, they seem to have a real nice engine with Frostbite 2. They can do advanced physics, and more importantly the scale of combat they couldn't do with older frostbite games (BF1943, BC2). Now you're going back to sweet ass 64 player combined arms maps, tanks, choppers, airplanes, warships, etc. with a modern advanced physics engine.

Do they have a killer game? They seem to think so, they're budgeting 200 million on advertising. I don't think they'd do that if they just had a cheesy clone. They think they have a superior product and are leveraging it heavily. Hopefully they don't screw it up on the execution (bad maps, bugs) or sales end in attempt to milk it (as someone said, releasing it with 3 maps, rest are DLC...) .

[Malakili]

Not to mention EA has stated outright several times that they think Battfield 3 is a "CoD killer", so they are at the very least marketing as such.

EA gave me the impression in their BF3 talk ups that they wanted to beat CoD by bringing a more sophisticated PC style Battlefield game to the console masses, not just by having a twitch shooter CoD clone. They are also trying to set a fire on the PC market with a hot shooter that they havent really been able to do since BF2.

From what I've seen so far in the limited previews, they seem to have a real nice engine with Frostbite 2. They can do advanced physics, and more importantly the scale of combat they couldn't do with older frostbite games (BF1943, BC2). Now you're going back to sweet ass 64 player combined arms maps, tanks, choppers, airplanes, warships, etc. with a modern advanced physics engine.

Do they have a killer game? They seem to think so, they're budgeting 200 million on advertising. I don't think they'd do that if they just had a cheesy clone. They think they have a superior product and are leveraging it heavily. Hopefully they don't screw it up on the execution (bad maps, bugs) or sales end in attempt to milk it (as someone said, releasing it with 3 maps, rest are DLC...) .

I'm not saying its a clone of CoD, I'm saying they think its in competition with CoD.  I don't necessarily think that it is so.  I don't plan on buying MW3 either way but that has nothing to do with my plans for Battlefield 3.  Right now I have both Black Ops and BC2 installed because they are different enough, and they are probably more similar than B3 and MW3 will be.

[Sky]

200 Million on advertising is when you have a product that is otherwise not note-worthy from the competition. Budweiser needs advertising dollars because it's the same as Miller and Coors.

BF1942 needed a demo.

[Speedy Cerviche]

You also need advertising to let people know about your product to gain market share in a competitive market. It's more effective when your product is actually high quality.

[KallDrexx]

From the Ars Technica article it seems like a decent service if you play a lot of CoD and isn't stupid expensive.

[Malakili]

From the Ars Technica article it seems like a decent service if you play a lot of CoD and isn't stupid expensive.

There is a fine line between "decent service if you play a lot of CoD" and "necessary service if you play a lot of CoD."

[KallDrexx]

There is a fine line between "decent service if you play a lot of CoD" and "necessary service if you play a lot of CoD."

Nothing described in the Ars article strikes me as necessary.

[Paelos]

I spoke with Jamie Berger, the VP of Digital with Activision, and he was unwilling to comment on a specific price or what features would be free and which would come with the premium service, but he did stress that the subscription would be "all-inclusive."
...
I was also told that the cost will be less than other, comparable subscription services, but I'm not sure what other services are comparable to something like this.

This is an incredibly smart play from Activision.

Yeah, sounds great. Crack reporting there. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

I'm looking forward to this just because I want to see how many people are all that serious about shooters.

[Mrbloodworth]

I'm looking forward to this just because I want to see how many people are all that serious about shooters. COD

FIFY.

[bhodi]

I predict it's going to flop.

It's just like the DLC idea. When you divide your base, it makes your game more brittle and less sticky. Brittle because your critical mass of players has just been cut in half, and sticky because people are much less likely to put up with buggy patches, bad hackers, poor maps, or other transitory issues when they're paying for a sub.


Your game had better be robot jesus because there's twenty other shooters out there for people to go to. And new ones every single month. Hell, counter-strike STILL holds the #1 and #2 currently played on the steam games list. It has FOUR TIMES the amount of players as the next game, 120k per day. THAT is what you're competing with.

CoD isn't robot jesus. I personally just went from "interested" to "pass" with this game. Fuck you, Kotick. Go swim in your billions and stop trying to rape the game industry that you already hold with such contempt.

[KallDrexx]

I spoke with Jamie Berger, the VP of Digital with Activision, and he was unwilling to comment on a specific price or what features would be free and which would come with the premium service, but he did stress that the subscription would be "all-inclusive."
...
I was also told that the cost will be less than other, comparable subscription services, but I'm not sure what other services are comparable to something like this.

This is an incredibly smart play from Activision.

Yeah, sounds great. Crack reporting there. 

MMO's aren't really comparable to this, so I'm not sure what your issue with this statement is.  Just because MMOs require monthly fees doesn't mean that the service they provide is comparable to this.

[Mrbloodworth]

Your game had better be robot jesus because there's twenty other shooters out there for people to go to. And new ones every single month. Hell, counter-strike STILL holds the #1 and #2 currently played on the steam games list. It has FOUR TIMES the amount of players as the next game, 120k per day. THAT is what you're competing with.

Thats because source is a hacking paradise. Threw mods or otherwise.

[bhodi]

Just to be clear, THIS is the garbage they want to charge for

FYI, people are throwing $8/mo around.

[Strazos]

Some of the features are...interesting, but most if not all should be free. On the PC, someone would just write a mod to track most of that stuff if the game did not do it be default. 

[Pennilenko]

If this is the future of shooters, it looks like my era has ended. I don't really need to play them anymore.

[Nightblade]

Sounds like steam for 2 games I have to pay monthly for. In summation: Fucking retarded.

[HaemishM]

Just to be clear, THIS is the garbage they want to charge for

FYI, people are throwing $8/mo around.

Is that Stainer from She's Out of My League?

[Lakov_Sanite]

Also sounds like you'll STILL have to pay for map packs.

[HaemishM]

No, I think you get the map packs as a subscriber, but you'll still be able to buy them separately if you don't subscribe.

[Reg]

Do you lose access to the map packs if you stop subscribing?

[Fordel]

Doesn't Bungie.net do all of that for free for Halo already?

[Engels]

Oh, look, a service that does all you used to do on your own anyway if you were seriously into FPS.

[sinij]

Call of Duty Elite - Subscription fee for CoD MW3.

I think BF3 devs and EA shareholders got early Christmas Present.


This Just In: Activision is Circling the Drain.