Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has never been one to shuffle about an opinion, and in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Kotick explained one thing he would immediately change if he had the ability.
“I would have Call Of Duty be an online subscription service tomorrow,” he said. “When you think about what the audience’s interests are and how you could really satisfy bigger audiences with more inspired, creative opportunities, I would love to see us have an online Call Of Duty world. I think our players would just have so much of a more compelling experience.”
“I think our audiences are clamouring for it. If you look at what they’re playing on Xbox Live today, we’ve had 1.7 billion hours of multiplayer play on Live,” he added. “I think we could do a lot more to really satisfy the interests of the customers. I think we could create so many things, and make the game even more fun to play. We haven’t really had a chance to do that yet.”
Mr. Kotick, I am not sure if you are right. I think people will just abandon your game if they have to pay a monthly fee to play your game. Most of your players don’t play MMOs, so they don’t understand that pricing. I know you want the money, but gamers probably won’t buy into your scheme. I knew he was going to say this sooner or later.
I can tell you that I personally wouldn’t touch CoD if it was subscription based. There would always arise a game that’s just as good multiplayer wise, and without a monthly fee. I bet EA would love it of Bobby got his way.
Now if Bobby is talking about a persistent CoD MMO world…then he might have my interest. I’ve always wanted to play an realistic modern or WWII based MMO. I just don’t think the technology or hardware base is there yet for something like I can imagine.
I think that is what he is saying… to make it into a pseudo-mmo. A persistent shooter environment, complete with the level of patching and updating t hat mmos receive which, as a general rule, is able to be significantly greater than a non-subscription based game.
I’m not saying its a good idea… but to reject it out of hand is not even considering the possibilities it opens up. The increased amount of cashflow on a regular basis would open up huge possibilities for updates, etc… so if it were handled RIGHT it would be a beautiful opportunity for shooter fans.
The problem lies with the fact that it would have to be handled right, and that is something that people just don’t have faith in.