How Much Is Too Much?

When it comes to console gaming not much changed over the years. The experience is about the same; you buy your console of choice and your buy your games. In recent years developers have tried to give consumers more bang for their buck as the prices of consoles and games rise. That's fair considering the current $59.99 price point for your average brick and mortar release. They have even managed to breathe new life into games by releasing additional content that can be downloaded via your console, for a price of course. The good thing about this is that these prices are usually fairly low because the additional content isn't as significant as what would come on the disc. That is unless you're Activision and know that people will buy the content for their game because of its runaway success and so they charge $15 for 5 maps. I would normally say that's besides the point and get to the matter at hand but the matter at hand is just that. Here were are a few days away from E3 and the Wall Street Journal just dropped some information to the net about Activision once again riding a slippery slope as they are attempting to adopt a subscription based model for their next Call of Duty release.

Subscription based games aren't a new thing. PC gaming is almost built around it with many massively multi-player online games that require a monthly subscription fee to play. However these games have massive amounts of support, influxes of content, and dedicated servers that the subscription goes to maintaining. For PC gaming, it's a sound model because it is the only charge for access that the consumer receives after the initial purchase of their game. The situation is much different with consoles. For most people they buy the console, and the game and that's it. Sure they can choose whether or not to take the game online or to purchase additional downloadable content for the game. But the fact that Activision has the audacity to introduce a subscription based model to their Call of Duty games seems like another way they can milk the franchise. After all, this is the same company that ran the Guitar Hero franchise into the ground by trying to release 9 Guitar Hero branded games in one year. Their basis for this is that the subscription fee will only be for extra features and not any of the base online features people have come to expect with their games. However the Wall Street Journal article goes on to detail some of the features included.

Basically your subscription, that you will pay monthly will give you access to extra content like downloadable maps. These are the same maps that you normally pay a flat rate for. Unless you're getting a new set of maps on a monthly basis, I don't see how that's justifiable. But for the sake of argument let me continue on with a direct quote; "Another feature of the service will give Call of Duty players tolls, 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." I'm not sure about you but this sounds an awful lot like the comprehensive stat tracking that the more recent Call of Duty games already have which shows how many times you have killed people with the various in game weapons, which weapon you use the most, and so on and so forth. 

I'm not going to deny that this isn't a good business strategy but it's also a very risky one. Lots of fans already complain about Activision's pricing for map packs. Some people still buy them, hell I bought Black Ops and the first map pack when it came out. I have however become annoyed with Activision's business practices and the fact that they will pimp out an intellectual property to the point that it becomes unprofitable. They've created a franchise that for the passed three years has generated billions in profits and sold millions of additional map packs. Activision is raking in the cash from the Call of Duty machine and yet they still believe there is more money to be sought from the consumer. Not only will you plunk down $60 on the game itself but they think you'll then go on to pay roughly $9.99 a month ($120 a year) for added content. Of course, if you are playing on the X-Box 360, this is on top of your subscription for X-Box Live. Should you get suckered in for this added content, you'll be paying for access to X-Box Live so you can play online, then you'll be paying Activision for stat tracking, maps, and a couple other features, on top of your $60 game purchase. I'm sorry but that's too much. Just because it works on the PC doesn't meant it'll work on consoles, that's why it hasn't been done before. Publishers know this. But low and behold, Activision proves once again that much like the honey badger, they just don't care. They want your money and they want it bad. All I'm pleading for here is a little bit of sanity. If you're hardcore into Call of Duty I won't fault you for purchasing this. But please know that you're simply giving them free reign to monetize features that were previously free. Frankly, I think enough is enough.




[Source, Wall Street Journal Online]