MW3's "elite" (premium) service, Beginning of the End

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So Activision announced the details of MW3's elite (ie: the paid subscription premium service) today.

$50 a year (in addition to the game) for all the standard 'free' stuff you get from TF2 (or soon to be BF3) as well as all the paid DLC. (which according to them/the press will mean at least a $10 savings if you were to just buy all the DLC).

Let me tell you what I see happening:
-This will be a smashing success.
-Activision will adopt this format to other games
-The rest of the industry will slowly adopt to this format
-The videogame industry will slowly turn into a segmented set of premium subscription services, similar to the cable industry. There will be an "activision premium" sub, a "EA/Origin premium sub" etc etc. This will be the only way to play AAA titles, unless you choose to play the basic, completely gutted, retail copy (which will eventually disappear itself)
-Then one of them will increase the subscription cost by $2, then another will increase it by $5. Then you know we're all screwed.

Paranoia? Sad reality?

That seems possible. The more hardcore of gamers might be angered, but it's obvious the casual players don't care, and that's where most of the money comes from. It will take alot more than this to truly impact those people.
 
That seems possible. The more hardcore of gamers might be angered, but it's obvious the casual players don't care, and that's where most of the money comes from. It will take alot more than this to truly impact those people.

Define hardcore, that's such a fucking vague term. I know plenty of people that ONLY play one game, series, or genre.

Let me lay it out for you. I play Quake (UT died but still play 1v1) 1v1 in Quake World, Quake 2, and Quake live, I still own and pay for servers in those. I play fighters, and I own multiple arcade machines, and multiple boards/pcbs that each cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. I play arcade shooters, old style bullet hell and CAVE PCBs, oh lol the price.

While I'm a bit extreme here, I run into the console FPS crowd at some fighter events. Some of these guys, in fact most, live eat and breath shooters. They'd have no issue paying 50 a year for it. And PC MMO's and transactional/micro charge based games have proved you can sell this to a mass audience.

It's the casual dabbler that probably won't care, they aren't in it for the game or for the genre. The hardcore area always the first to buy it up like crack.
 
Define hardcore, that's such a fucking vague term. I know plenty of people that ONLY play one game, series, or genre.

Let me lay it out for you. I play Quake (UT died but still play 1v1) 1v1 in Quake World, Quake 2, and Quake live, I still own and pay for servers in those. I play fighters, and I own multiple arcade machines, and multiple boards/pcbs that each cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. I play arcade shooters, old style bullet hell and CAVE PCBs, oh lol the price.

While I'm a bit extreme here, I run into the console FPS crowd at some fighter events. Some of these guys, in fact most, live eat and breath shooters. They'd have no issue paying 50 a year for it. And PC MMO's and transactional/micro charge based games have proved you can sell this to a mass audience.

It's the casual dabbler that probably won't care, they aren't in it for the game or for the genre. The hardcore area always the first to buy it up like crack.

Would you consider yourself a hardcore Quake fan?
 
Valve is making..sorry...enticing people pay for items in TF2.

What were you saying about Valve? :D

what??
the functional items in TF2 can be reasonably obtained without buy them. No where near the same.
 
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...ivisions-tests-your-desire-to-pay-to-play.ars

This is an excellent article that details exactly what is going on, and it also shows what a slippery slope we have been going down on ever since $15 map packs became a reality.

Now there's this . . .


You will pay $60 for your Call of Duty game every year

on top of that you will all but have every incentive to pay for the $50 yearly subscription

so your true cost for a CoD title won't be the $60 of the game, but add on the $50 and whatever other microtransactions they come up with you're looking at $110 minimum, plus tax.
 
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...ivisions-tests-your-desire-to-pay-to-play.ars

This is an excellent article that details exactly what is going on, and it also shows what a slippery slope we have been going down on ever since $15 map packs became a reality.

Now there's this . . .


You will pay $60 for your Call of Duty game every year

on top of that you will all but have every incentive to pay for the $50 yearly subscription

so your true cost for a CoD title won't be the $60 of the game, but add on the $50 and whatever other microtransactions they come up with you're looking at $110 minimum, plus tax.

Terrible.

This is the kind of stuff that kills gaming.
 
What the op had to say could be feasible. The same thing happened regarding dlc... Retail you get stripped down versions missing content due to day one dlc releases we see now. They will always come up with new schemes to increase profits... (this, dlc, blizzard breaking a title apart into three separate releases)
 
How is >$10 a month "Terrible"? Seriously...

Make sure you have the <> symbols going the right way.

Why is it terrible? The same reason you have to buy WoW for $30 then pay $15 a month for it. It's a shitty system. Make me subscribe or make me pay up front. Pick.
 
Make sure you have the <> symbols going the right way.

Why is it terrible? The same reason you have to buy WoW for $30 then pay $15 a month for it. It's a shitty system. Make me subscribe or make me pay up front. Pick.
Oops, yeah I meant <.

Let's say you're the marketing manager of a major publishing/game development company. You're going to propose the idea of selling your game for an upfront cost of approximately $226.00 as opposed to an initial investment of $30.00 and an extra fee of $15.00 a month? You'd lose your job pretty fucking quick...I'm saying this and I'm not even savvy on what it takes to produce/market a AAA game.
 
Make sure you have the <> symbols going the right way.

Why is it terrible? The same reason you have to buy WoW for $30 then pay $15 a month for it. It's a shitty system. Make me subscribe or make me pay up front. Pick.

instead, you pay $60 for the game, then $50 for the "elite" service

and they will release multiplayer mode with like 5 maps to start you off, then they will throw in more maps from Black Ops and MW2, maybe a few from CoD4

they will just be selling you recycled content.

If you are lucky they might make an original map, but of course it will be one left out of the release because it's been marked for DLC.
 
instead, you pay $60 for the game, then $50 for the "elite" service

and they will release multiplayer mode with like 5 maps to start you off, then they will throw in more maps from Black Ops and MW2, maybe a few from CoD4

they will just be selling you recycled content.

If you are lucky they might make an original map, but of course it will be one left out of the release because it's been marked for DLC.
Yeah...these companies want money for the entertainment they provide...it's such a sham.

As I proposed above, put yourself in the shoes of a market manager...someone who is trying to sell his product. How would you Mr. "I know what's best for the gaming industry", handle yourself? I mean you seem to know what it takes to run a multi-million dollar gaming/publishing company.
 
Yeah...these companies want money for the entertainment they provide...it's such a sham.

As I proposed above, put yourself in the shoes of a market manager...someone who is trying to sell his product. How would you Mr. "I know what's best for the gaming industry", handle yourself? I mean you seem to know what it takes to run a multi-million dollar gaming/publishing company.

I am pretty sure you're being sarcastic, which makes everything you wrote wrong.
 
Yeah...these companies want money for the entertainment they provide...it's such a sham.

As I proposed above, put yourself in the shoes of a market manager...someone who is trying to sell his product. How would you Mr. "I know what's best for the gaming industry", handle yourself? I mean you seem to know what it takes to run a multi-million dollar gaming/publishing company.

I would run my gaming company the way Valve does, have you seen all the excellent shit they have made with TF2 since it was released 72 years ago?

It's all been free too, and the only microtransactions that exist in the game are for OPTIONAL cosmetic addons that you can buy to customize your look to your hearts content.

If you've bothered to read the arstechnica article (I'm sure you didn't bother) then you'd see why the Elite thing is a bad thing, it really WILL fragment the CoD community, there will be those who buy it and then there will be those who don't.

The ones that DO buy it will get early access to maps, and be playing on them long before the non-Elite (has a word ever made you want to puke like this one does?) members are able to buy them (paid dlc or whatnot? don't hold your breath on it being free). They will have a commesurate advantage over those who decide not to be an "Elite" subscriber.

So instead of the $60 they would ordinarily get from you, they get $110 per year from you, along with any other microtransactions they can think of to cram in the game.
 
Cod 4 everyone enjoyed. They reused maps from cod2. Chinatown, an exact copy of the one cod2 maps just with different textures. So they started doing this a long time ago. Just making sure nobody comes in here saying mw2 started the map reuse crap.
 
Cod 4 everyone enjoyed. They reused maps from cod2. Chinatown, an exact copy of the one cod2 maps just with different textures. So they started doing this a long time ago. Just making sure nobody comes in here saying mw2 started the map reuse crap.

Nothing wrong with using a good map or 2 from a previous game, key word being good.

But selling old maps as DLC??????

FUCK NO :mad:
 
I would run my gaming company the way Valve does, have you seen all the excellent shit they have made with TF2 since it was released 72 years ago?

It's all been free too, and the only microtransactions that exist in the game are for OPTIONAL cosmetic addons that you can buy to customize your look to your hearts content.

If you've bothered to read the arstechnica article (I'm sure you didn't bother) then you'd see why the Elite thing is a bad thing, it really WILL fragment the CoD community, there will be those who buy it and then there will be those who don't.

The ones that DO buy it will get early access to maps, and be playing on them long before the non-Elite (has a word ever made you want to puke like this one does?) members are able to buy them (paid dlc or whatnot? don't hold your breath on it being free). They will have a commesurate advantage over those who decide not to be an "Elite" subscriber.

So instead of the $60 they would ordinarily get from you, they get $110 per year from you, along with any other microtransactions they can think of to cram in the game.
Yeah...I'm going to be paying for and playing this game you make mention of while you wait in your little "I'm a leet entitled PC gamer" chair for Episode 3 to come out...good luck...you obviously put no thought into your rants...you just rant. Get a fucking clue man.

I can't wait until Valve decides to release Episode 3 as a "console" title only. I'm sure your already grandiose ideas of what does and does not apply to how a gaming company does what it has to do to stay afloat will cause your brain to melt.
 
Yeah...I'm going to be paying for and playing this game you make mention of while you wait in your little "I'm a leet entitled PC gamer" chair for Episode 3 to come out...good luck...you obviously put no thought into your rants...you just rant. Get a fucking clue man.

I can't wait until Valve decides to release Episode 3 as a "console" title only. I'm sure your already grandiose ideas of what does and does not apply to how a gaming company does what it has to do to stay afloat will cause your brain to melt.

So now you're saying you're going to switch to console gaming?

Gonna sell that PC?

So you're NOT a hardcore gamer after all? Only casual gamers play on consoles, everybody knows that.
 
So now you're saying you're going to switch to console gaming?

Gonna sell that PC?

So you're NOT a hardcore gamer after all? Only casual gamers play on consoles, everybody knows that.
I've gamed on "PC's" since the Commodore 64...I've also owned pretty much every console that has been released to the public since the Odyssey.

I love both. I also happen to understand and consider the impacts that society, economics, and technology have on the games that I love...You? Not so much.
 
Nothing wrong with using a good map or 2 from a previous game, key word being good.

But selling old maps as DLC??????

FUCK NO :mad:

And this is why mod tools DARE NOT exist. Someone will remake the map FOR FREE.

They took an open game and clamped it down. Hurray for bobby kotick.
 
And this is why mod tools DARE NOT exist. Someone will remake the map FOR FREE.

They took an open game and clamped it down. Hurray for bobby kotick.

not only that, they will make better maps too, better mods, notice how after all these years, people STILL play CoD 4, CS Source, even the original Unreal Tournament?
 
not only that, they will make better maps too, better mods, notice how after all these years, people STILL play CoD 4, CS Source, even the original Unreal Tournament?

Exactly. I remember flying a jet around in UT:GOTY...with a modified redeemer rocket. And the levels that are a huge bathroom and you're tiny (or billard room. Or kitchen. Or bedroom....) and so forth. UT:GOTY is WAY the hell more fun than 2k4 or UT3 ever were for me no less. Give me classic mode ANY day.

It's a crying shame that modding is considered to be of a lesser priority anymore...that UE3 is free to use if you don't sell, as is the source engine makes things a little more hopeful, but still grim.
 
I think we can all agree, even the makers of cod, will be happy when Bobby Kotick gets the fuck out of Activision. I hope they catch him for something like Tax fraud and he loses all his money. This guy has taken my favorite series and just made it cost more and more money -_-.
 
I can definitely agree with how Elite could have a bad effect on the industry for gamers but it's really only if it suceeds. Elite was received poorly by the COD community and hasn't done much to gain ground, as well as a general fatigue with the COD franchise and the growing perception that CODMW3 is a very expensive expansion pack (with no dedicated servers for console)...with a real competitor in Battlefield 3 which offers a comparative service to Elite for free.

Basically I'm expecting Elite will be at best a small success. If it launched for CODMW2 or even Black Ops, it would be a different result entirely.
 
I can definitely agree with how Elite could have a bad effect on the industry for gamers but it's really only if it suceeds. Elite was received poorly by the COD community and hasn't done much to gain ground, as well as a general fatigue with the COD franchise and the growing perception that CODMW3 is a very expensive expansion pack (with no dedicated servers for console)...with a real competitor in Battlefield 3 which offers a comparative service to Elite for free.

Basically I'm expecting Elite will be at best a small success. If it launched for CODMW2 or even Black Ops, it would be a different result entirely.

Do you have sources to back up what you're saying? I would be interested in reading.
 
This thread just keeps getting better. It's like grown men yelling at young girls not to like Justin Bieber. A combination of not having any of the same interests, along with a good bit of jealously thrown in.

P.S. MW3 on track to crush Blackops sales, you're making a difference in your life!
 
There won't be a backlash because the console gamers eat this shit up.

Sad, but true, console gamers and their defenders are stupid and oblivious, so it's quite possible some sort of subscription based model will prevail, especially as the console idiots and their defenders far outweigh PC gamers......the irony though is that the PC gamers usually have more money, but they won't tolerate as much as their dumber console cousins.
 
Sad, but true, console gamers and their defenders are stupid and oblivious, so it's quite possible some sort of subscription based model will prevail, especially as the console idiots and their defenders far outweigh PC gamers......the irony though is that the PC gamers usually have more money, but they won't tolerate as much as their dumber console cousins.

God I love stereotypes. Don't you?

As for money, really? PC gamers spend gobs of money on the PC itself. Console gamers will likely have saved money on the system and can thus afford Live or other subs.

Live however makes some sense....
 
God I love stereotypes. .

It's a reasonable one to make.....

Thing is, I'm more than happy to pay more for HQ games, but in many ways, standards are going backwards, so I'm trying to avoid overspending and constantly contemplating giving the whole thing away{other than my fav racing sim}
 
Sad, but true, console gamers and their defenders are stupid and oblivious, so it's quite possible some sort of subscription based model will prevail, especially as the console idiots and their defenders far outweigh PC gamers......the irony though is that the PC gamers usually have more money, but they won't tolerate as much as their dumber console cousins.


You are just ignorant. You make an ignorant statement backed up by nothing. My wife is a console gamer, she was Valedictorian of her high school class and is almost done with her Masters program. She loves the Map packs for black ops. So according to you she is stupid and oblivious. In reality she is intelligent and likes to play games to relax. A lousy $15 for a few cool maps is worth the price in her eyes. People like you are fail. People in this thread have talked about their freedoms being taken away. What freedoms? This is the last time I waste my time in this area of these forums.

These threads at first were funny, but now I see them for what they are, a bunch of idiots posting nonsense about bending over because people buy games.

I will buy Diablo 3 and I don't give two shits about whether it costs money to play or if I have to have a live internet connection while playing. My wife and I will continue to buy map packs and other DLC and we won't waste another second worrying about all of the greedy little tools out there who want everything for free.:D
 
Oh noes, $110 a year for a game that some people enjoy very much? Tragic! Wait, let's all go protest every MMO out there because they charge $160 a year on average ($15 a month, 12 months) on top of costs for game/expansions.

Why is 1 acceptable and the other a total ripoff from scumbag greedy jerks?
 
Oh noes, $110 a year for a game that some people enjoy very much? Tragic! Wait, let's all go protest every MMO out there because they charge $160 a year on average ($15 a month, 12 months) on top of costs for game/expansions.

Why is 1 acceptable and the other a total ripoff from scumbag greedy jerks?

To be honest, an MMO has way more stuff to do and customize than an FPS. FPS is basically just run and gun, while MMO has hundreds of spells, potions, different classes and gets updated frequently(WoW gets a lot of updates) while you know CoD MW3 is not going to really have a good updating service. Its just gonna be fix some bugs(if there are any) but glitches will still exist and other problems too. Activision doesn't support their games beyond the most basic needs.
 
You are just ignorant. You make an ignorant statement backed up by nothing. My wife is a console gamer, she was Valedictorian of her high school class and is almost done with her Masters program. She loves the Map packs for black ops. So according to you she is stupid and oblivious. In reality she is intelligent and likes to play games to relax. A lousy $15 for a few cool maps is worth the price in her eyes. People like you are fail. People in this thread have talked about their freedoms being taken away. What freedoms? This is the last time I waste my time in this area of these forums.

These threads at first were funny, but now I see them for what they are, a bunch of idiots posting nonsense about bending over because people buy games.

I will buy Diablo 3 and I don't give two shits about whether it costs money to play or if I have to have a live internet connection while playing. My wife and I will continue to buy map packs and other DLC and we won't waste another second worrying about all of the greedy little tools out there who want everything for free.:D
This.
 
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