Big Capital Bold Letters For The Hard Of Reading: THESE ARE THE VIEWS OF AN ANALYST NOT THOSE OF ACTIVISION. Everyone clear on that? Good, then we shall continue.
The analyst to which I refer is Mike Hickey from Janco Partners who published a research note regarding a ‘rumoured’ subscription service for players of Call Of Duty in China. At present Activision have a deal with a company called Netease in which they license out the operating rights to World Of Warcraft for the territory. Hickey speculates that a similar deal for Call Of Duty ‘could bring in $50-100 million’.
If a subscription to Call Of Duty could bring in $100 million for just China, the possible revenue from European and U.S. subscriptions would be astronomical. This is the second time an analyst has encouraged Activision to make Call Of Duty a subscription model, despite Treyarch and Infinity Ward stating COD will not face subscription charges.
And now for some pure speculation and opinion from me: Bob Kotick has stated more than once that he wants to turn COD in to a subscription service and if Treyarch and Infinty Ward are against this what about the third COD developer, Sledgehammer? All we know is they are working on a Call Of Duty title, perhaps rather than turn one of the existing COD franchises to subscription and alienate the fans they are planning to create a brand new title that is subscription based from the start. This would tie in with a rumour from back in January when Activision were recruiting developers for a mystery COD MMO.
Source: Gamasutra
cc_star
Will be good stuff if it was an offshoot of the franchise which went MMO, that would palatable to gamers – wouldn’t it?
bunimomike
When people play MW2 online (on the PS3) what servers are they using? Activision’s?
hazelam
uhm, aren’t they hosting the games themselves though?
i’m not 100% certain but i’m sure i read mw2 was peer to peer.
which would mean activision just run the matchmaking server.
iAvernus
You are correct sir
cc_star
Server based matchmaking, ranking & infrastructures but the actual games are P2P hosted just like they are for nearly all games.
When people moan about crappy servers they should be moaning to their ISPs for crappy P2P traffic – or make sure they are on a broadband package which doesn’t place P2P traffic down the pecking order… which nearly all the non=specialist providers do (Sky, Orange, TalkTalk etc basically all the providers where you get broadband free or subsidised by the providers core business)
bunimomike
Cheers, guys.
Basically, what I’m after is IF they charge a tenner for two months (for example) what costs do they incur for match-making? Surely, it’s close to negligible. I’m hoping that the little effort on Activision’s part would mean that you could get six months online for a tenner.
They could then bring down the price of the game itself and people wanting to enjoy single player campaigns, like me, would stump up the readies for it.
Severn2j
@bunimo, I think you are assuming that the idea is to provide some kind of extra service for this subscription.. ;)
Severn2j
I think a just as likely headline would be “COD subscription could kill franchise”.. I would prefer that outcome, not out of dislike for COD, but because if it works, everyone will follow and it’ll mean the end of free online gaming.
hazelam
a fee for online play could mean that we’d have to pay less if we’re only interested in the single player, but knowing activision, they’ll want to have their cake and eat it.
bunimomike
That’s what I’m worried about, Hazel. Activision will hopefully recognise that people may well pay for a cheap but reliable online service and there’ll also be a portion of gamers who want to enjoy the single player campaign.
On another note: I want to buy MW2 for the PC but I believe the game is useless if I pick it up second-hand. For that reason alone, Activision won’t be getting my money.
hazelam
yeah, the pc version uses steam, so it will be forever tied to the first person who plays it.
have i mentioned how much i dislike steam? o_O
bunimomike
I don’t believe you have. Perhaps you could couple this with some thoughts about DRM and I’ll sit back while I watch the internet break. :-P
/end of sarcasm.
cc_star
All valid points
But as suggested in the article what if Treyarch & Infinity Ward were free to carry on with their annual releases at standard retail pricing & multiplayer making its money through DLC, as happens currently, but a third title was generated with ActiBlizz’s killer WoW business model – maybe made by a third developer, Sledgehammer?
That way core fans will be happy as the status quo is maintained and Acti get to explore subscription models, which you never know people may end up preferring
bunimomike
Mate… when it comes down to it, if people are going to play 100 hours a month, it doesn’t matter what game it’s on, as long as they’re getting value for money. It’s the very reason World of Warcraft works. The hardcore WoW fans are hitting it so hard they’re not spending money on other games (most of the time).
Same could easily work for MW3 if they went for a subscription only model.
If whatever is chosen is fair, I’m happy with it all. :-)
hazelam
reports from an analyst, that wasn’t pachter?
anyway, the reason so many people get so hot under the collar about these kind of reports is that despite coming from somebody outside activision, nobody has any doubts that this is something activision will do one day, and like you said kotick has said he’d like to charge a fee for online play, which will go down very well with lives subscribers.
beeje13
‘could’ make $100m thats if everybody did it, and i’ve talked to a few people about this – none of them would pay it.
This would only work if the actual physical game was free.
hazelam
http://www.gamer4eva.com/2010/08/online-gaming-banned-overnight-in.html
seems china might be off the table.
Klart
I bought the 3 last CODs, but I won’t buy a subscription. I doubt it ‘ll be a succes.
Bilbo_bobbins
I know I wouldn’t pay for online gaming unless the game was very cheap indeed. Or if it was one heck of an experience, which never is from COD.
Origami Killer
nice joke, i have to pay £45 pound for the game (£5 higher than any other game) and then pay for the online which gives me anger problems….this would never happen.
cc_star
Where does it say that?
bunimomike
It doesn’t. Origami Killer has his best Sunday Flouncing Dress on. He’ll settle down after the tranquillisers kick in.
Grey_Ghost13
If it is sledgehammer working on it I assume it would be a stand alone online game alobg the same line as MAG or Warhawk. It could end up being a good thing if we still get the great COD games we are used too and then there’s a seperate MMOFPS game, just immagine customizing up your own COD Avatar! It’s a shame as I thing Infinity Ward could have came up with a great online only package that kept players hooked for months, look how well they went from Modern Warfare 1 to 2 with all the tweaks they implemented.
scylax7
I doubt most people would pay to play MW2 at least in its current form when they could just play Battlefield instead for example..and i prefer battlefield anyway :)
iAvernus
Well yeah. I won’t pay to play a MW2, although I still play it. If they implement this, then it has to be faaaaaar batter than MW2. Even if it’s better, I doubt I’ll pay for it anyway. I like things for “free” =)
fps_d0minat0r
call of duty peaked, now theres only one way it can go, DOWN!