Activision to introduce pay-to-play online service for Call of Duty

That sucks, why do that?

[QUOTE="jyoung312"]

[QUOTE="KungfuKitten"]

Could this mean that Diablo 3/Starcraft 2 will have monthly fee?

Btw i have to laugh at their idea that there is 'demand to pay up for that'. There is never a demand to pay.

KungfuKitten

Development costs at the beginning of the generation were on average $5-10 million for major releases. Teams were 75-125 people. Now, major releases are ballooning to $30-40 million, with 200-300 people working on them... That is ridiculous. Last generation teams were like 30-50 people and budgets barely scratched $5 million even for the biggest releases.... Things are out of control. EA is shutting studios down. Ubisoft is reducing the number of projects they have. Activision is also cutting projects slightly despite being one of the most profitable companies. Publishers are going out of business. Developers are going out of business... THINGS ARE NOT GOING WELL. The business model is broken. You would have to be completely blind to argue that the current model is going to be sustainable next generation. And if you think that MW2 was developed at "minimum cost" then you are even more blind than I originally thought...KingsMessenger

There is nothing I've seen of MW2 that screams high production values. It is built of the existing COD4 engine and at least the next COD game will likely use that same engine again. The dev time was around 2 years. You can not possibly argue that this game had near the money sank into that say, Killzone 2 had. The campaign is a short series of set pieces and the multiplayer was merely tweaked (some of the ideas came from modders of PC COD4 community for crying out loud). Let's look at some successes this generation:

Gears of War 2 - Budget $12 Million - Copies sold: over 5 million

Take based off of sales of 5 million at $60/copy : $300 million

Gears Link

Uncharted - Budget $20 Million - Copies sold: over 2.5 million

Take based off of sales of 2.5 million at $60/copy: $150 million

Uncharted 2 - Budget $20 Million - Copies sold: over 1 million

Take based off of sales of 1 million at $60/copy: $60 million

UC Link

Clearly, these numbers fly in the face of your $30-40 million assumption. Yes, there are games that are at or north of your figure but both of these titles are top tier games at half or less of your guess. One of them (Uncharted) is even a new IP. Dev costs are a concern but they are not near as dire as you portray them to be. Also to note, the economy isn't exactly back in good shape yet and likely won't be for a while either. I would attribute that as much as any other factor for studio closures.

If that happens then ill just stick with Battlefeild or Killzone :)

They might have one. Remember that Star Craft 2 doesn't have lan support, which could be part of the plan to unveil a Battle.Net that charges you for games. So instead of being able to set up a LAN and play with ppl Activision forces you to sign up for their network to play against others and then charges you for it.jyoung312

I won't be content until I have to pay 5 more additional charges to play a 4 hour single player campaign. Come on MS and Activision, make it happen baby.

[QUOTE="KingsMessenger"] Development costs at the beginning of the generation were on average $5-10 million for major releases. Teams were 75-125 people. Now, major releases are ballooning to $30-40 million, with 200-300 people working on them... That is ridiculous. Last generation teams were like 30-50 people and budgets barely scratched $5 million even for the biggest releases.... Things are out of control. EA is shutting studios down. Ubisoft is reducing the number of projects they have. Activision is also cutting projects slightly despite being one of the most profitable companies. Publishers are going out of business. Developers are going out of business... THINGS ARE NOT GOING WELL. The business model is broken. You would have to be completely blind to argue that the current model is going to be sustainable next generation. And if you think that MW2 was developed at "minimum cost" then you are even more blind than I originally thought...RenegadeSynapse

There is nothing I've seen of MW2 that screams high production values. It is built of the existing COD4 engine and at least the next COD game will likely use that same engine again. The dev time was around 2 years. You can not possibly argue that this game had near the money sank into that say, Killzone 2 had. The campaign is a short series of set pieces and the multiplayer was merely tweaked (some of the ideas came from modders of PC COD4 community for crying out loud). Let's look at some successes this generation:

Gears of War 2 - Budget $12 Million - Copies sold: over 5 million

Take based off of sales of 5 million at $60/copy : $300 million

Gears Link

Uncharted - Budget $20 Million - Copies sold: over 2.5 million

Take based off of sales of 2.5 million at $60/copy: $150 million

Uncharted 2 - Budget $20 Million - Copies sold: over 1 million

Take based off of sales of 1 million at $60/copy: $60 million

UC Link

Clearly, these numbers fly in the face of your $30-40 million assumption. Yes, there are games that are at or north of your figure but both of these titles are top tier games at half or less of your guess. One of them (Uncharted) is even a new IP. Dev costs are a concern but they are not near as dire as you portray them to be.

Everyone on here that bought MW2 would pay to play MW2 or 3.

Same as the PC owners that was was boycotting MW2 and LFD2 and then bought the games.

People pay for this.

People pay for this.calvinx6

It's moments like these where I support the PC hackers, who'll eventually get to play the pay to play CoD for free.

"According to the Activision CFO, there is a demand from its core fanbase to pay for additional services."

That made me laugh.

I understand Activision is trying to run a business, but give me a break. This is getting ridiculous. I really hope that this backfires on them.mo0ksi

lol.

why lol?

I dont care about cod?

why dont i care?

Cz ill still have Battlefield?

Why Battlefield?

Its better, has destruction, has vehicles, better sniping. And did i mention destruction?

Thank all the cockheads who buy DLC and all that other useless **** You can even thank the ones who bought Modern Warfare 2 for the PC. This **** only happens because people support it. And we can thank them ahead of time for supporting Activisions pay to play service because we know they will.

Thats stupid, even more stupid for the Xbox 360 people, they are already paying. :x

This is almost as bad as WoW charging $10 for a virtual pet93soccer

Are we sure this isnt for the rumored Call of Duty Online? Which seeing as how we know nothing about it could actually be an mmo?

You keep on saying "less features" while knowing absolutely nothing about it besides the fact that it will have a fee.

...it would be best to actually know what it provided before passing judgment, which it seems that many people here dont want to do. .

Trmpt

Why should anyone put any faith in anything Activision is doing? Activision does not deserve the benefit of doubt as there is no doubt they'll always consider the most profitable alternative over that which is fair to the user. If removing features/content and using them as incentives for a subscription is believed to be an effective way to hook people and squeeze more money out of them, they will attempt to do so. Kind of like how they removed features from MW2 and charged more for it.

[QUOTE="Trmpt"]You keep on saying "less features" while knowing absolutely nothing about it besides the fact that it will have a fee.

...it would be best to actually know what it provided before passing judgment, which it seems that many people here dont want to do. .

InsaneBasura

Why should anyone put any faith in anything Activision is doing? Activision does not deserve the benefit of doubt as there is no doubt they'll always consider the most profitable alternative over that which is fair to the user. If removing features/content and using them as incentives for a subscription is believed to be an effective way to hook people and squeeze more money out of them, they will attempt to do so. Kind of like how they removed features from MW2 and charged more for it.

LOL Activision and those who buy their games.rcignoni

Good luck dealing with the backlash, Kotick, and the legions of gamers calling you a greedy douche.

[QUOTE="InsaneBasura"]

[QUOTE="Trmpt"]You keep on saying "less features" while knowing absolutely nothing about it besides the fact that it will have a fee.

...it would be best to actually know what it provided before passing judgment, which it seems that many people here dont want to do. .

HuusAsking

Why should anyone put any faith in anything Activision is doing? Activision does not deserve the benefit of doubt as there is no doubt they'll always consider the most profitable alternative over that which is fair to the user. If removing features/content and using them as incentives for a subscription is believed to be an effective way to hook people and squeeze more money out of them, they will attempt to do so. Kind of like how they removed features from MW2 and charged more for it.

I get why this is objectionable, but I don't see why it's so shocking.

Given that World of Warcraft can make over $1 billion in revenue a year from subscription fees, produce over a third of Activision-Blizzard's revenue on its own, and provide more profit than everything Activision makes, doubled, it's not exactly shocking that Activision wants to have more titles like that.

In a way, it's sort of funny to see people justifying WoW's subscription fees given the enormous levels of profit Blizzard makes, while spurning the very possibility of any kind of subscription fee for any other kind of product.

I get why this is objectionable, but I don't see why it's so shocking.

Given that World of Warcraft can make over $1 billion in revenue a year from subscription fees, produce over a third of Activision-Blizzard's revenue on its own, and provide more profit than everything Activision makes, doubled, it's not exactly shocking that Activision wants to have more titles like that.

In a way, it's sort of funny to see people justifying WoW's subscription fees given the enormous levels of profit Blizzard makes, while spurning the very possibility of any kind of subscription fee for any other kind of product.

sonicmj1

And if Blizzard wants to reap more of the same kind of money, why not just make a new MMO? Oh, that's right. Too many others have tried, but it seems WoW is a phenomenon all its own: so unique that no one can seem to get even close to the same level of success.

[QUOTE="sonicmj1"]

I get why this is objectionable, but I don't see why it's so shocking.

Given that World of Warcraft can make over $1 billion in revenue a year from subscription fees, produce over a third of Activision-Blizzard's revenue on its own, and provide more profit than everything Activision makes, doubled, it's not exactly shocking that Activision wants to have more titles like that.

In a way, it's sort of funny to see people justifying WoW's subscription fees given the enormous levels of profit Blizzard makes, while spurning the very possibility of any kind of subscription fee for any other kind of product.

HuusAsking

If you looked at the numbers, you'd see that all of your money clearly does not go to WoW content, updates, and expansion packs. The majority goes to Activision-Blizzard, to offset the exorbant costs of Activision's next-gen game development. That's how Blizzard can produce $700 million in profit in 2008, and Activision-Blizzard as a whole can wind up with a consolidated operating loss of $233 million. Blizzard could cut WoW subscription fees in half, and even if they didn't get a single new subscriber as a result, they'd still be making money. So I don't see why you have an objection to giving people money that they don't need to update their product.

Furthermore, a Call of Duty with a (possibly optional) subscription model would probably offer users incentive to subscribe, and continual support through events or new maps would be one way of making that happen.

I have little interest in Call of Duty, and I have even less interest in a subscription-based model (I'd rather not have games go down that path), but it's a pretty obvious move on Activision's part.