{"id":8561,"date":"2010-11-16T12:26:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-16T10:26:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T22:00:00","slug":"activision-dlc-preferred-over-subscription-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/8561-activision-dlc-preferred-over-subscription-model","title":{"rendered":"Activision: DLC preferred over subscription model"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking in an interview with Joystiq<\/a>, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick discussed the viability of a subscription model versus downloadable content.<\/p>\n

Kotick referred to the fact that Xbox 360 gamers already pay a US$5 per month subscription for the Gold LIVE service, a small portion of which winds up in the hands of Activision. Kotick himself reckons that “Call of Duty games probably represent more than 50% of the total Xbox Live traffic.” CVG<\/a> also recently reported that Xbox 360 has so far snagged 55% of Black Ops sales.<\/p>\n

Kotick compared the value of the LIVE subscription service to Activision Blizzard’s World of WarCraft service, where customer service makes up for a considerable portion of the subscription fees. Speaking of the LIVE subscription fees, Kotick said that Activision receives a “very modest amount of the subscription fees,” and he would like to see any further cost increases “directly benefitting the Call of Duty players.”<\/p>\n

Kotick went on to explain why he thinks that the DLC model is far better than a potential subscription model: “The best way to keep people engaged in your game experience is keep giving them more great content. Our customers need to be satisfied that there is a price-value relationship that they feel great about.”<\/p>\n

“As business models evolve, as the way you distribute content evolves, as the ability to do things online changes in terms of pricing or trial or sample, I think we’ve definitely always been out in front of the rest of our competitors. But I think you always need to be sensitive to that relationship and not crossing the line to a place where the customer feels like they have been taken advantage of,” said Kotick.<\/p>\n

“We do spend a lot of time doing audience research to see about pricing models. You can have a virtual item sale, pay for a level, you can pay for a downloadable content pack, you can pay for a refill product. There’s so many different ways, and they are evolving so quickly that we are spending a lot of time evaluating all these different ways that consumers can feel good about how much they pay for their video game experiences.”<\/p>\n

So, perhaps Kotick thinks that, for the time being at least, a subscription service for Call of Duty games would leave the customer feeling as if they had been taken advantage of. Activision had no trouble shifting plenty of Modern Warfare 2 map packs for US$15 a pop, so it makes sense to stick with what consumers are apparently happy with, rather than raise ire by implementing a new subscription service for the franchise.<\/p>\n

Would you prefer a subscription service for Call of Duty games, or the curent piecemeal DLC model? Discuss on the MyGaming forum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Activision\u2019s Bobby Kotick thinks that DLC currently trumps a subscription model for generating revenue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}