Activision Defends Call of Duty Elite

[jovack22]

Why are they being so cryptic about it.

Give us a T chart that let's us see in plain view. What's free, and what will they force people to pay for.

Something like this:
http://mossblog.allthingsd.com/files/2009/08/windows-upgrade-chart.png

 

[dbmountain]

I don't see what the big issue is, it's just like any social networking site that has some sort of premium account that you pay for to have extra features. Even the Escapist has the Publisher's Club.

 

[koroem]

Its still irrelevant fluff content that no one should be paying for.

Until I see a CoD game with out of the box at least 200-500 maps that will be updated and added to four times per year or more, One persistent world where thousands of players can engage in combat at the same time with drop in drop out mechanics, Quarterly advancing narrative expanded via multiplayer, The ability to build and enhance weaponry, The ability to build and retain skills, etc and a whole lot more, I will not be deceived into buying into this.

Basically until the developer has done an equivalent amount of work as a typical MMORPG developer has, do not bother with this industry damaging garbage.

This actually makes a lot of sense. If you are going to pay a subscription fee, this should be the minimum criteria to get money value for since it is already established and has been for years.

 

[TPiddy]

This reminds me of the story about a chef and a frog.

The chef (who wants to cook the frog) placed the frog into a pan of boiling water.
However, harmed by the heat, the frog simply jumped out.

So, to trick the frog, the chef left the water cool at first, which the frog enjoyed. Then, slowly he turned the heat on to the minimal setting. The frog didn't notice.
And then, over time, he cranked up the heat bit by bit. Slowly but surely.
Because of this, the frog never noticed the heat was increasing and was boiled alive.

I'm almost certain this services "premium" features will become more and more vital as time goes on. Modern Warfare 3 probably won't see this problem. But it will be more and more pronounced with each new game.
Calling it now.

Absolutely. They can't turn it into a subscription service overnight... the fans would revolt and take the piss out of them. So they start by introducing the pay model for enhanced features... and slowly and slowly less features are put in the core product and more are put into the subscription product... it'll be a slow, painful death and I will laugh at all those cod-heads who either have to pay up or quit playing

 

[Zenode]

So they create a game which makes billions of dollars THEN adds in a service which NOONE asked for which all other games give out for free.

Sorry activision but when you announced this i decided to drop MW3 from my buy list.

The only thing I will pay a subscription for is an MMO because i understand the costs involved in server upkeep etc...this...this is just a pure money grab and i hope CoD dies because of it.

 

[standokan]

Bobby bloody Kottick has done it again.

 

[Andronicus]

What's the point in having a multiplayer portion of Modern Warfare 3 at all if they're just going to release this Elite thing alongside it? Wouldn't it be much better if they spent all the space and resources on making a spec-bloody-tacular single player game on the disc, which people could pay a (hopefully) slightly cheaper up-front fee for, and then release the subscription-based Elite alongside it? That way people who don't give a flying toss about multiplayer (ie. me) can play a the single-player game at a lower cost, and those people who usually buy the game and jump straight into multiplayer whithout giving single so much as a glance can pay whatever they want to for their own experience.

Seems a lot more logical to me, rather than having two completely separate multiplayer services running alongside each other.

 

[Antari]

If they wanted this to go over easy they should start with it entirely free. The fact that they aren't suggests they'll start charging for everything later. Either way I'm not going to provide them a positive statistic by using it. Or by buying COD.

 

[dropZero]

So it's sort of going to be like Battle.net, except you have to pay for it. Nice one Activision.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Pfff....

It's everything Bungie has own their site, but it costs money?

No thanks.

This.

I saw a bit of Call of Duty Elite on Xbox's SUAMessage the other day and all that was going through my head was "This just looks like Bungie.net, only we have to pay for it"

 

[The Rockerfly]

This reminds me of the story about a chef and a frog.

The chef (who wants to cook the frog) placed the frog into a pan of boiling water.
However, harmed by the heat, the frog simply jumped out.

So, to trick the frog, the chef left the water cool at first, which the frog enjoyed. Then, slowly he turned the heat on to the minimal setting. The frog didn't notice.
And then, over time, he cranked up the heat bit by bit. Slowly but surely.
Because of this, the frog never noticed the heat was increasing and was boiled alive.

I'm almost certain this services "premium" features will become more and more vital as time goes on. Modern Warfare 3 probably won't see this problem. But it will be more and more pronounced with each new game.
Calling it now.

This is my entire opinion on this matter. Activision are so unbelievably greedy it's scary. hey have one of the most successful video game franchise to ever exist and they are trying to piss the fans off? Just stick to the formula guys but I seriously cannot imagine more than a small percentage of people doing this and I'm talking >10%

 

[PettingZOOPONY]

People keep saying they hate this idea of paying for part of a game you already own, I have to ask how many are 360 players? You pay extra to access MP anyways so why does this offend you.

 

[RvLeshrac]

There is still absolutely no way I'm ever going to download it, just because I disagree with Elite in concept. We bought the game, now give us what we paid for.

There's also the problem of: once this starts, where does it end? Will we end up in a situation where we cannot even play online without paying?

I like Call of Duty as much as the next guy (maybe more than the next guy seeing as we're on the CoD-phobic Escapist), but if I'm dishing out £45 for it, I don't want to be given only half the game.

"CoD-phobic"? I don't like being kicked in the nuts, either, but that doesn't make me "Kicked-in-the-nuts-phobic."

Bad games are bad. You can have a clearly well-made game that doesn't suit your tastes, but CoD is just bad. The first game in a given arc might be... OK... but then they just stop innovating.

On top of that, they've functionally abandoned the single-player experience in favour of multiplayer - so if single-player games cost so much more to produce, why not just release a multiplayer-only version of the game at a substantially lower price, then add the service to it?

As you essentially pointed out here, people wouldn't be as up in arms about CODE if they could pick up a MP-only CoD for <$30, then pay $5/mo.

 

[S3Cs4uN 8]

Bobby bloody Kottick has done it again.

I rate bobby "bloody" Kotick up ther next to Matthew "MotherF***ing" Ward the bane of warhammer 40k

 

[Harkonnen64]

There is still absolutely no way I'm ever going to download it, just because I disagree with Elite in concept. We bought the game, now give us what we paid for.

There's also the problem of: once this starts, where does it end? Will we end up in a situation where we cannot even play online without paying?

I like Call of Duty as much as the next guy (maybe more than the next guy seeing as we're on the CoD-phobic Escapist), but if I'm dishing out £45 for it, I don't want to be given only half the game.

You and me both, brother.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Oh come on now, Activision knows how to spawn crack babies, ofcourse the first hit is free and once they got you hooked, you will be paying out of your arse to get anything.

 

[C95J]

Ahhh the joy of reading these comments, and looking at how so many people overreact about something which they don't even have to pay for...

I guess people just like to complain.

 

[Frostbite3789]

This reminds me of the story about a chef and a frog.

The chef (who wants to cook the frog) placed the frog into a pan of boiling water.
However, harmed by the heat, the frog simply jumped out.

So, to trick the frog, the chef left the water cool at first, which the frog enjoyed. Then, slowly he turned the heat on to the minimal setting. The frog didn't notice.
And then, over time, he cranked up the heat bit by bit. Slowly but surely.
Because of this, the frog never noticed the heat was increasing and was boiled alive.

I'm almost certain this services "premium" features will become more and more vital as time goes on. Modern Warfare 3 probably won't see this problem. But it will be more and more pronounced with each new game.
Calling it now.

It's similar to the crap fuel companies pull.

They slowly ratchet up the price, as it goes higher and higher, take note of customer reaction. Then they slowly lower it back down, but to where it's still higher than it originally was.

It may only be $3.59 a gallon, a month and a half ago it was $3.29, but at least it isn't the $3.94 it was a week ago.

They're slowly going to screw us more and more. And as a whole, we've shown we'll take it. CoD map packs for $15 already proved that. Or did we already forget about that?