Activision survey hints Call of Duty subscription, possible COD MMO?
June 15, 2009 by srfto
When Modern Warfare 2, the successor to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was announced and demoed at E3, the focus was primarily on the single player game. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, as CoD 4 sported one of the most engrossing and well-written storylines to ever grace an FPS game. However, to discount the sizable multiplayer audience of the game, who were no doubt salivating for some new info, seems like a bad idea. There may be a method behind the madness, however, as it appears that Activision may have some new ideas for Call of Duty multiplayer.
The good news? There’ll probably be more features. The bad news? You may have to pay for them. Apparently, a survey has been floating around the gaming community with Activision gathering data on how best to proceed. Would you be willing to pay a small fee to have early or exclusive access to game maps, special modes, and advanced tracking tools? That seems to be what they are banking on. According to the survey, this would be optional content added as a paid service to those interested – you wouldn’t have to pay to just play Call of Duty multiplayer.
The question is, does that mean that if you don’t pay, you don’t get supported? Will there be no new downloadable content for those who don’t buy in?
But more surprisingly, is the rumor of a MMO element that is going to be added into COD4. This might be reality soon since Activision’s Bobby Kotick did hinted at the possibility of a Call of Duty MMO awhile back with this quote from Morgan Stanley Technical Conference.
“What would be the natural evolution of a property like Call of Duty into a massively-multiplayer environment and how do you monetize that?”
“While a Call of Duty MMO may be a long way off, if it ever gets off the ground, it’s starting to sound like Activision execs may be giving it serious thought and we’d expect it to be a big focus for the publisher’s ad revenue model.”
Also, Kotick pointed out that he is very interested in implementing in-game advertising, which the model of it will most likely resemble Starcraft ladder tournament style.
It could be a risky move on Activision’s part to put in this so called “online shell”, but let’s be real… we all saw this sort of move coming. Who wouldn’t enjoy a MMOFPS anyway huh? What do you guys think?
Survey courtesy of Destructiod.
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I’ll be upset if this happens and won’t continue playing CoD. I hate MMOs since many of my friends get so incredibly addicted to them and I’d hate to see one of my favourite FPS’s move in the same direction. 50$ is enough for a game. I don’t want to make it any more of an investment.
Great constructive criticism, you hate MMO’s because many of your friends do??
have ever even played an MMOFPS, they are distinctively different from MMO’s like WoW and the sorts.
Do you even realize what kind of an impact the persistant world aspect has on FPS games, probably not cuz there is only 1 real MMOFPS out called Planetside. any1 who i have talked with who has tried planetside says that depsite the faults it IS the future of FPS
anyhow , try before you judge…..
First off the first question you asked was wrong he said he hated MMO’s bacouse his friends like it so much thery get addicted and become console zombies.
But he has a point with cost. If they add a MMO’s part to it the price jumps from 50$ – 60$ to 75$ since production costs would rise.
A big risk indeed. What Activision needs to realize after they stop salivating over potential revenue is that FPS gamers and MMO gamers are a completely different species. If they’d put down their calculators and come out and do some actual research into their demographics they’d know this. I hope Infinity Ward is jumping up and down raising caution flags to Activision because they should know better.
They’re going to invest all that time money and resources into an MMO just to find out that an FPS gamer does not equal an MMO gamer.
Most of the people I play FPSes with also play MMOs and most of the people I play MMOs with also play FPSes. The only people they risk losing are the casual gamers who won’t pay monthly for any game.
Do this and you will loose many players, leave the model alone, we obviously like it the way it is…..
While I am not against the MMO idea, a few things that would need to be established before I pay a monthly fee for COD are new maps, new features, new unlockables, new single player campaigns, etc. Frequency and quality would make or break it. If they have revenue beyond the initial purchase of the game, I would expect content and updates to reflect the updates. The biggest hurdle is how to moderate that between the paying users and non-paying. Would there be servers exclusive to the paying players run by the developer? If so, how would they be moderated?
Lots of questions yet to be answered. That’s why they’re doing surveys I would guess.
If Activision tries this it will kill COD for sure. PC gamers are not going to pay to play. I don’t even think you will be able to get them to purchase perks or maps. If they charge for maps like they do for the Playstation and Xbox it will mean that those people unwilling to buy the maps will not be able to play on that server. This will also kill alot of servers. BAD BAD idea. I prepurchased the game and I may have wasted my money.
What servers?
WWIIOnline is a good example of a decent MMOFPS. How this can be applied to the COD franchise when they have yet to include any real vehicle physics will be interesting to hear. Also will it be WWII? Vietnam? Modern Day?
I don’t see what the big deal is, IF its a separate game. Planetside was an AMAZING MMOFPS.