Why Call of Duty will stay free to play?

A lot of rumors have been going around that the Call of Duty franchise will be moving from free to play online to a monthly subscription service. Activision has already denied this stating that their is not enough content to charge a monthly fee to consumers. One of the famous rumored reasons other than money issues for West and Zampela leaving Activision was over the fact that Activision wanted to charge a monthly fee for online play. West and Zampela believed that the franchise should always be free to play online and told Activision the backlash would hurt the company.

Even Michael Pachter analyst has made predictions that Activision would move Call of Duty to a monthly pay service in order to keep profits high since consumers are buying less video games. Michael Pachter argues people have less money in general so gamers are playing the same games more often and buying less software all together. I am disagreeing with Michael Pachter and siding with Activision on this one. Moving Call of Duty from a free to play to monthly service would be a risky move which Activision is not willing to take.

Why is making a monthly service risky? Well this would require Activision to come out with true content for the game. If you look at the map packs for the Call of Duty franchise they offer very little content compared to the game as a whole. In Modern Warfare 2 you get five maps (two of which came from Modern Warfare) for the price of $15. Really you are only paying for the development of three new maps compared to the price of the original game of $60. Modern Warfare 2 came with sixteen multiplayer maps and added ten more with both add ons. That means consumers payed $30 dollars for ten new maps (well six if you don’t count the old maps). That is a steep price since the add ons do not add any new weapons, or modes.

If Call of Duty did go to monthly service it would have to add true content which might not be a bad thing. For starters it would mean that the bugs and glitches would have to be fixed in a more timely manner compared to the current rate that they are now (sorry to all the Black Ops fans who play on Playstation 3). New content such as speech lobbies, or even towns would have to be added in order to make the game feel more like a service than just the same game. New Maps and maybe even new weapons would have to be added in order to keep players interested enough to keep players paying the cost to keep up the service. Activision would also have to hire a bigger staff in order update the game faster and to keep up with customer complaints. It would actually be a great thing for Activision to have a customer complaint hotline since I have been wanting to get some things off my chest, but that will never happen since Activision does not need one (or so they think).

People underestimate the power of consumer as well. Gamers will riot in the streets (if not I will have lost all hope) if Activision moves Call of Duty to a monthly service. We might not pick a lot of fights with developers but when it comes to our wallets we don’t like getting ripped off. Activision would have to really show that a monthly service would add more content than we are already getting from the free to play service (which I highly doubt). Activision is about taking minor steps in most of their franchises and unless another first person shooter went to a pay to play service the risk would be to high for Activision.

Right now add ons work for Activsion because it does not take a lot of resources to develop new maps. People are more likely as well to pay the one time fee of $15 dollars then to pay a constant fee of ten dollars a month. The current Call of Duty will probably see its share of add ons and probably at the same price as the last ones. I am predicting more add ons as well at least three since the last two add ons sold in the millions. Let us just hope that the new add ons add something more like new achievements, weapons, or even gameplay modes then just maps.

4 thoughts on “Why Call of Duty will stay free to play?

  1. This is a good evaluation on some levels… but you leave out a lot of things. You forget that CoD is not on a WHOLE level of its own… It had more of a console presence in the past than other games like Battlefield, and adopted online MP over those earlier and got good “positioning” from this. However when there’s other things like it…

    Battlefield Base Series
    Bad Company Series
    Medal of Honor Series

    These games are not that vastly different, and not so bad where a monthly fee will still be preferred over them. This isn’t the first game to try this, Phantasy Star Online had XBLA fee’s and an additional fee for online play. Overall the online community was not booming and not much was added.

    As far as CoD needing better content to justify it… This is also a bit off key. Since we will constantly need to update our games, upgrade our content, etc… This is not an issue PC gamers will face but console games will unless they offer a DL version of CoD. More people will be waiting for the next one, than expecting so many maps we end up with 40 maps and zero other content. Adding things like weapons and new game elements didn’t fair all too well with Killzone 2 and the problem becomes adding something that’s possible to add without it being seen as “tacked on” and “IMBA”

    If CoD can market to a sector that ISNT saturated, it could possibly take off… but if they try this games wont be looking for what they get, they will just go to Bad Company _ or whatever, atleast 2 had new map packs even if they were just locked out… it added gameplay for free which isnt a bad thing.

  2. @grant gaines- Well you are right Call of Duty does just borrow other ideas from other series if you even want to go as far back as Counter Strike. I understand your concern that if new weapons or modes were just added at whim that it could be considered “tacked” on. I am just another gamer who is tired of being given new maps and having developers say it completely changes the game. I think I might be spoiled by Valve with Team Fortress 2 because you get constant new maps, weapons, and even game modes every once and awhile.

  3. While I understand that the overall of the game can be improved greatly via monthly fee (just like Xbox Live,) I have to disagree. Some of us do not want to commit to paying due to bills, family, work, etc, (which is why I moved from the Xbox to PS3.) If they switched to monthly subscription package for the Call of Duty, the company would lose about half of the players. Many gamers would be angry, including me. I would just quit and play some other free small FPS games on the PC. Simple as that. Some of you say you can afford the monthly subscription? Good for you. But think of the general audience. The future $15 maps are enough for me to enjoy the game in new ways.

  4. @Trevor- For me I cant afford to pay a monthly rate myself, so i am crossing my fingers that my prediction is correct. I did not buy the last two DLC map packs for MW2 because i did not see the value in it. I am just hoping they at least give me a new game type or weapon of some sorts. World at War i think had the most expansive DLC with the last Map Pack Der Riese which is probably one of the best Zombie Maps.

    Thanks for the comments!

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