It would appear that Activision Publishing will be realising their long-rumoured dream of introducing a subscription scheme for the Call of duty franchise. This service, previously discussed under the name of Beachhead, will be named Call of Duty Elite – presumably because parting with money for a Call of Duty digital content monetisation scheme somehow makes you ‘Elite’.
Throwing all caution to the wind, and press embargoes be damned, The Wall Street Journal has gone ahead and revealed the project before the rest of the gaming press, who are fastidiously sticking to the aforementioned embargo. Until the allotted time on 31 May 2011, when the ‘official’ details will begin to emerge, we have the info from The Wall Street Journal to go by.
Activision plans to launch Call of Duty Elite alongside Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which is planned to be hitting shelves on 8 November 2011, and it will of course support all future iterations of the Call of Duty franchise. The plan is to charge a subscription fee for the service and offer additional content that doesn’t come with the standard retail package, such as map packs.
Certain features will be free, such as Facebook integration and matchmaking. The service will also include ‘Call of Duty’ tools to enable players to track and analyse their in-game performance and statistics.
Activision says that they have not yet figured out how much they will charge for the service, but they are looking closely at comparable monthly subscription online entertainment services, such as the US$7.99 (±R55) Netflix streaming movie service, and Activision Blizzard’s own World of WarCraft which costs around US$15 (±R103) per month.
Those who game via Xbox LIVE can expect to pay for a Call of Duty Elite subscription on top of their LIVE Gold subscription fee.
Call of Duty Elite screencap
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said that he doesn’t think gamers will balk at the Call of Duty Elite service, as they will still be able to play the online multiplayer component of the games without subscribing to it. Kotick did not reveal further details on the service and what it would provide, but said that the customer-service operation needed to support it wouldn’t be possible without the subscription fee, calling it an “enormous investment.”
Activision’s vice president of digital for Call of Duty, Jamie Berger, stated that there are about seven million daily players of Call of Duty games, who spend on average about seven full days a year playing online.
I can almost see the Dollar symbols floating in front of the Activision executives eyes as they contemplate a monthly subscription fee squeezed from 7 million fans of the Call of Duty franchise.
What sort of service could Call of Duty Elite supply to justify a monthly subscription fee? << Share your thoughts on the MyGaming forum.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
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