Activision To "Monetize" Call of Duty Online Play 114
With Call of Duty: World at War set to hit store shelves this November, Activision has been making plans to monetize the online component of the game. "Infinity Ward-developed CoD4 has paid downloadable maps available on digital storefronts, but with CoD5, developed by Activision studio Treyarch, downloadable content will be a considerably bigger priority. Griffith added that Activision 'plans to increase online monetization' with CoD5, offering '3x the amount of content available for download and premium content called Day One Advantage.'" Activision also announced that for Call of Duty 6 they will be going back to Infinity Ward for development, the company who developed the first, second, and fourth offerings in the series. Treyarch made the third and fifth installments.
Day One Advantage (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, CoD3 was made by a different company (Score:4, Insightful)
Monietize WTF? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:word play (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:word play (Score:3, Insightful)
It costs me about $20 a week for league bowling (nerd alert!). So I spend more in one night than I do for a month of WoW. As far as hobbies/habits/addictions go, WoW is far-far-far from the most expensive.
Re:Day One Advantage (Score:2, Insightful)
such hypocrisy is disgusting.
so what, exactly, makes it ok for people to pay for wow expansions and monthly fees on top of that but makes paying for a map pack so much less virtuous?
and i just love how paying for anything under any circumstance is considered rape unless it's one of the darling companies of slashdot.
it's a fucking game. don't like it? don't fucking play it. you're acting like someone is keeping milk from children or something.
My level of interest... (Score:4, Insightful)
sorry, not interested (Score:5, Insightful)
They're trying to run a racket on console gamers.
PC gamers do not put up with these bullshit tactics.
If this game is going to make you pay for all the content, they had better sell the game at a very steep discount. I'm talking $19.99 for nextgen consoles. Anything more would be offensive and unethical.
This is part of the reason why I don't play mmo games. I'm not paying for content that should be in the game, and I'm not paying to play.
I forsaw this years ago when I first heard about DLC. This is an unethical attempt to rob their customers by nickel and diming them for content that is already on their disc but cannot be used due to this shit.
I hope they get sued for putting the Day One DLC on the disc. Simple explanation is, I've paid for this game and I can't use the stuff on the disc because EA is charging ransom for it.
Good night gaming.
Re:Day One Advantage (Score:3, Insightful)
BC added just as much. New skills, balance changes, new profession (and a very useful one I might add), significant new recipes for all other professions, TONS of new areas, flying mounts... the only thing LoD had that BC didn't was new classes. Oh, and new cutscenes, but then again, WoW didn't have them in the first place (I'm not counting the intro, I mean actual cutscenes that advance the plot), so that isn't exactly a fair comparison.
Saying that BC just put a new coat of paint on WoW, while LoD made D2 a whole new game, is absolutely ludicrous, considering that BC added every bit as much content as LoD did.
Re:first off... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I agree on the fact that an undone game is something that should never happen. Especially when it comes to polish in a game. I don't really don't want to ever play a buggy game. The problem lies when that is very subjective. Some people think COD 4 is the greatest gift to mankind, and to me it isn't. You are right, it can become very stale gameplay. Publishers don't like to take risks. That is why gaming is in a rut. Halo 3 was not much different than Halo 2. I bet you anything that they didn't want to totally change up the formula because that might risk losing more people.
When you have a game that has sold 11 million units and an average of $50-60.00 a pop...that is a lot of money. Developers don't see that money at all. All of that money gets filtered back into the publisher, either to line their quarterly earnings or to fund other misc. projects.
All I know is that it isn't as clear cut as people try to make out to be. Yes greed plays into it, but that happens in any major corporation. Games are no different than most any other business. It is the fact that people think they know what they are talking about when referring to games and how they should be made, but in reality they have absolutely no idea what goes on behind the scene
Re:sorry, not interested (Score:5, Insightful)
I forsaw this years ago when I first heard about DLC. This is an unethical attempt to rob their customers by nickel and diming them for content that is already on their disc but cannot be used due to this shit.
I disagree. Downloadable content is a great idea, assuming a full game is shipped in the first place.
For example, take Forza Motorsport 2. It would be hard to argue that they sold an incomplete game. It has a dozen or more distinct tracks, each with several variations, as well as hundreds of cars.
Every few months they release a new car pack with 10-12 new cars for ~$5. I'm happy to pay for them, because I get new content that revitalizes an already awesome game.
It would be another story if they sold a $60 game with 10 cars and made you pay for the rest, but to suggest that game publishers and developers can't charge money for new content is ridiculous.
Re:word play (Score:1, Insightful)
Better question: when did it become acceptable that the purchase of a computer game would guarantee less than one month of enjoyment? I may not be able to purchase a new game for $15 outside of the bargain bin, but when I do spend that 2-3 "month's worth" on a new game, my expectation is that it will be as enjoyable/diverting for as long as the comparable WoW subscription. I've recovered from my WoW addiction, but it was very favorable in the money to fun ratio as compared to picking up the latest PC game.
That's not a meritocracy... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's more of a temporalocracy. Rule by those with the most spare time.
I'll go even further (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I'll go even further and say that any game which officially sells in-game advantages (e.g., "Gun +1") for RL cash has already elliminated itself from my purchase list. It taints any claims of skill or achievements, much in the same way as being able to pay to use a horseshoe in the glove at a boxing match.
Honestly, what's such a rigged contest supposed to prove? Who has a bigger disposable income IRL? I just need to look on my bank account to see whether I'm doing fine there, I don't also need to blow that money so a stupid game can tell me essentially, "yay! You're so great! Your $1000 payment puts you ahead of the guy who paid $900, but you're still way behind the guy who paid $20,000." (Don't laugh, I've been briefly in a web-based game where supposedly someone had paid that ridiculous sum for unfair advantages.)
And if anyone still thinks that that's a kind of achievement, hey, here's an idea: just send me the money and I'll put up a top score page with the rankings by sum paid. You don't even have to bother ganking newbies with bought loot or anything. It goes directly to your score. Won't that be fun?
Ah, wait, I forget that the whole point there is for some loser to pretend he's so much cooler and achieved something by paying for enough advantages to finally muster up the courage to attack a newbie. Carry on.
Re:xbox360 users (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh don't worry.
You'll be paying a little more. After all, they know you're paying for online service already, so you're the kind of guy who'll part with a bit of cash for an extra-double-plus-good online experience. You are the primary target.
it's not like they get any of that gold account money anyway.
Re:sorry, not interested (Score:4, Insightful)
I would, agree if the DLC is question hadn't already been written and added to the original disc for the initial release, then made available for an extra sum later. Quite often with DLC on the 360 you download a 300k "key" which unlocks content that was shipped with the original game, and held in abeyance until the consumer ponies up more cash. I'm not saying this is the case with Forza 2; I really don't know. But the trend to post-charge for content shipped with the game is infuriating.
Re:xbox360 users (Score:2, Insightful)
Xbox and Live users are directly responsible for companies believing they can charge for content the rest of us used to get for free. No sympathy here, you've made your bed, and messed ours up into the bargain.
Re:Which is more meritocratic -- paying money or t (Score:2, Insightful)
Beyond that, there's even better news for you. Some games are starting to take importance away from sheer aiming ability and putting it toward teamwork. The biggest example is Team Fortress 2, where a team of all snipers is going to lose, period. Aiming ability will not help you against spies who look like your team's sniper, or automatic turrets which are nigh impossible to kill with a sniper rifle.
Of course, if competition isn't your bag, period, you can always play one of many enjoyable coop games like the Serious Sam series, Half-Life: Sven Coop, Gears of War, Timesplitters, and the upcoming Left 4 Dead. The Call of Duty game mentioned in the story will have Cooperative play, and I'd be surprised if it didn't become standard in all the sequels thereafter.