Call of Duty ELITE Announced (With leaked MW3 Footage)

[BBS]

Just announced, COD Elite the project that beachhead has been working on. It is a premium stat tracking, Theater Mode sharing, COD social network that will work with Black Ops and with MW3.

Consumers are used to paying $60 each for videogames that run on consoles like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Now the publisher behind the industry's biggest videogame franchise— "Call of Duty"—is about to find out whether it can get them to pay a monthly bill, too.

Activision Blizzard Inc. plans to launch an online service called Call of Duty Elite this fall that will work with the next major edition of the game, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3," and future installments of the hyper-realistic combat-simulation game. In a move industry executives describe as a first, Activision plans to charge a monthly subscription fee for the service, which will provide extra content that isn't offered on game discs sold in stores, including downloadable map packs that give players new "Call of Duty" levels to play.

Activision executives said they haven't yet figured out how much to charge for the service, but they expect the cost to be less than fees for comparable online-entertainment services, such as a $7.99-a-month Netflix Inc. movie subscription. Portions of the service will be free, including features inspired by Facebook Inc. that will let "Call of Duty" players meet for online gun battles with others who share various affiliations and interests.

Another feature of the service will give "Call of Duty" players tools, modeled on those from stock-trading websites, to analyze their performance within the game, gauging factors such as which weapons have been most successful for them in killing enemies.

The plan—which comes a week ahead of the videogame industry's big E3 trade show in Los Angeles—is a potentially risky bet by Activision that it can further milk profits from consumers, who could feel the $60 they spend on "Call of Duty" in stores is enough. Charging a monthly subscription fee is more common for multiplayer games that run on personal computers. The most successful of those is "World of Warcraft," a fantasy game from Activision's Blizzard division that has over 11 million subscribers, who typically pay $15 a month for the service.

For players with a Microsoft Corp. Xbox 360 console, a Call of Duty Elite subscription will come on top of the $9.99 monthly fee they typically pay for Xbox Live, the online game service that provides players of all Xbox games to meet and compete against others online. Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 console owners don't pay a monthly fee to play against others online.

The PlayStation Network that provides those multiplayer capabilities recently suffered an outage of more than three weeks after a hacker intrusion on the service. Players of PC versions of "Call of Duty" don't pay to play others online.

In an interview, Activision Chief Executive Bobby Kotick said he isn't worried about pushback from gamers about the Call of Duty Elite fee because players will still be able to compete against each other online without subscribing to the service. While he is coy about many of the offerings that will be included in the service, Mr. Kotick said Call of Duty Elite, and the customer-service operation that will be needed to support it, wouldn't be possible if the service was free. "This is an enormous investment," he said.

"Call of Duty" is in a unique position to seek a monthly fee from customers. The game's previous installment, set during the Cold War and called "Call of Duty: Black Ops," was the best-selling game last year, with global retail sales of more than $1 billion during its first six weeks on shelves.

Since Activision first began publishing the series almost eight years ago, it has accounted for more than $3 billion in retail sales, according to the company. Unlike hit movies, new versions of "Call of Duty" come out every year, with "Modern Warfare 3" due to arrive in stores Nov. 8.

"It's probably the biggest entertainment franchise in the world," said Dennis Durkin, corporate vice president in Microsoft's interactive-entertainment business.

Just as important is the degree to which "Call of Duty" has become the biggest online-game hit on consoles. While many gamers still play the old-fashioned way—by themselves against enemies operated by the game itself—"Call of Duty" has been the most successful console game at getting players to battle other human-operated opponents over the Internet.

Jamie Berger, Activision's vice president of digital for "Call of Duty," said the company has about seven million daily players of the game who spend, on average, about seven full days a year playing the game against others online. Players often use headsets to communicate verbally with other online gamers.

Like other publishers, Activision has earned money selling "Call of Duty" map packs and other digital content for one-time charges, but subscriptions to its new service could give it a continuing way to capitalize on the online popularity of the game.

Rob Dyer, senior vice president of publisher relations at Sony's U.S. games division, said only a few games have the audience loyalty and size to support a subscription service like Call of Duty Elite. Mr. Dyer said he is "very confident" other publishers will follow Activision's lead. "There's money to be made there," he said.

Source:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355310423496054.html

More details will be available May 31st once its officially announced. This isn't it though. A trailer for COD Elite has been leaked. The best part of this isn't the footage of Elite. Its the footage of MW3 Multiplayer at the end.

Even though it is brief, in the footage you can see an AK47 (w/ Holographic sight), and ACR. The MP map "Dome" can also be seen. Character models look great, the graphics look like a step up too.

I will update this article when more info comes out on May 31st.

[KrazyCookies]

http://www.hiphopgamershow.com/2011/05/call-of-duty-elite-is-here-first-footage-and-details-now/

No post found...

Lol also 100th post! (I still gotta long ways to go... )

[KillerBkild]

Just another way for activision to milk the COD franchise for all its worth.

paying for DLCs is not enough. Lets charge a monthly subscription

:facepalm:

[BBS]

http://www.hiphopgamershow.com/2011/05/call-of-duty-elite-is-here-first-footage-and-details-now/

No post found...

Lol also 100th post! (I still gotta long ways to go... )

Linked to a different page, should work now.

[HaloOrCod]

http://www.hiphopgamershow.com/2011/05/call-of-duty-elite-is-here-first-footage-and-details-now/

No post found...

Lol also 100th post! (I still gotta long ways to go... )

Excuse me sir.But i Cant allow for you to use my Picture.

On topic:Ak,Holographic.Scar H.Win.Get New xbox and this MOAR WIN.

[Legend]

It will come on with my XBL subscription? I think thats what it said.

[squiddy]

I am trying to work out if this a good thing or a bad thing. I will wait for details until I decide if it is worth getting or not. I would say I will just stick to the normal MP.

[Technicuddle]

Me being a Show off type im going to get it....

As long as i get Guns and New maps.

Maybe a killstreak where Money rains from the sky and gives very bad paper cuts to enemies.

[thegrix]

"Until a real price is announced, if you’re looking for a ballpark, Netflix was name-checked by the Wall Street Journal...and Netflix is $7.99/month." - Taken from oneofswords blog post

This is what scares me...

7.99/month x 12 months (until next CoD) = $95.88

map packs (if not free with CoD Elite) which is another $45 for three map packs.

Add on the game's base price of $59.99, 69.99 or 149.99 (depending on edition)

That is just too much money for me...

I am still thinking of buying MW3 but I'm sticking with the free version of CoDElite. The multiplayer still has to impress me though...

[BBS]

"Until a real price is announced, if you’re looking for a ballpark, Netflix was name-checked by the Wall Street Journal...and Netflix is $7.99/month." - Taken from oneofswords blog post

This is what scares me...

7.99/month x 12 months (until next CoD) = $95.88

map packs (if not free with CoD Elite) which is another $45 for three map packs.

Add on the game's base price of $59.99, 69.99 or 149.99 (depending on edition)

That is just too much money for me...

I am still thinking of buying MW3 but I'm sticking with the free version of CoDElite. The multiplayer still has to impress me though...

Two things, firstly Wall street Journal said that its going to cost less then netflix, not around netflix's price. That could mean 7.50$ or that could mean 3.00$. The next thing is that you get all DLC free when your a COD elite member. The included DLC is enough of a reason for me to get this.

[aegisknight]

I have decided that the "ELITE" service is a universally bad thing for gaming.

The Call of Duty franchise has run up to the limit of money they can suck out of their games, and this exists only as an additional tap. Think about it: each game costs $60, and then they have at least 3 "map packs" adding additional content (which we all buy).

By the end, you're paying $120 for the game ($60 initial investment, plus $20 x 3 map packs). But thats not all your paying. If you're like me, you play it on the xbox 360, and may not play any other games online. So thats another $20 or so a month, or in other words $240 a year. So I'm paying over $360 for my first year to shoot other people in the face.

Then we get to this new service. I do not know the price off-hand, but I'm thinking it will be in the realm of $5/$10 a month. Thats sucking an additional $60/120 out of a gamer for a year of play, regardless of the system. Keep in mind that it doubles the purchase price of the game, and if you buy the map packs, you're paying a full three times the price at release.

So what does this mean? It kills creativity. Games have no reason to really change at this point. Think about it: what kind of games are going to get real attention, the experimental game that looks like a lot of fun, or the "tried and true" game that will get gamers pumping out 3x the money, probably even more?

We don't see a whole lot of original games to begin with because of this problem, think back to e3 and how many games that weren't sequels or spinoffs that were announced. I'll give you a hint: next to nothing. Hell, the most "original" game I've played in the last year was Portal 2, which was a sequel, and only existed because Valve bundled the original with a game that was being re-released as part of a successful franchise.

So the most "original" game was a sequel of a game that was only sold bundled with a sequel (and its sequels) of a game that was hugely popular 15 years ago.

The more we are willing to keep shelling out for this "additional content", the more developers are going to be afraid of trying new things; the opportunity cost from deviating from the model is simply too great. It is very bad.

But I'm not saying I won't buy it either, I just think it is a bad trend. Its still an interesting addition to this particular series and it has piqued my interest. But I know how the service was developed; some guys were trying to think of a way to suck more money out of the franchise and looked for a way to do that, not necessarily improve the game.

[DEFCON 1]

Just another way to make money. people are just going to find out about the dlcs some time and there eventually gonna make em aivalable via xbox live or psn. Thats a little bit like what treyarch is doing, zombie map packs available only xbox live or psn and now there going to be available on disks. believe it.

[aegisknight]

there is no reason for them to be released as discs. That increases the cost of production significantly and eats into profit margins.