Infinity Ward, Treyarch debunk ‘pay to play’ Call of Duty rumour

“nobody has to pay to play COD or MW2 multiplayer”

I dont doubt that at all but to access all the content in Black Ops and have all the bells and whistles it’ll be 20 quid a year, thank you very much.

Well, there we have it.

But I don’t think idea will go away completly. Charging for online play is a way to gain revenue from game sales while at the same time not increasing the retal price for those that don’t play online, and at the same time fighting second hand sales.

Maybe someday we will see pay per play subs. Maybe not.

jaffe also said he wasn’t making twisted metal… liars all of them. dont act surprised when these shitzus pull a rabbit out of your ass hat.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/goodgame/video/

Watch this episode of Good Game (not sure if you can watch outside AUST due to copyright) and skip to the Treyarch interview.

Watch and listen.

There is no way in hell they are going to completely overhaul the “social” and “ranking system” and give it to you for free when old Bob Kotick wants to start charging for this type of thing. COD World exists, but its going to cost you.

@4 I call bullshit.

There’s been a huge movement to introduce customization and social elements to retail games for a very long time, and no one has figured out a way to charge for it so far.

Just look at EAs massive push to create social networks surrounding their games, like the Bioware social network.

I don’t doubt people are looking at ways to make that profitable, but for that to happen you need the industry to lift as a whole, and that’s a mammoth task.

You can’t be the only publisher to charge for a product when others are offering it for free, and you sure as hell can’t legally sell people a licence to a game, and then charge them a subscription to use it afterwards.

“You can’t be the only publisher to charge for a product when others are offering it for free, and you sure as hell can’t legally sell people a licence to a game, and then charge them a subscription to use it afterwards.”

You can if your the only publisher who’s knocking out 12m plus copies of a game and you have Bobby Kotick at the helm.
I believe all FUTURE versions of COD will have a subscription element, pure and simple. Basic multiplayer may remain included as part of the original purchase price but there will be significant elements you have to pay extra for.

Time will tell.

im actually disappointed with this. i was hoping this would get everyone off cod and playing other things :-/
the amount of casual’s that play it and think its the best there is, is insane

@6 That’s still very different from yelling “Black Ops will have subscriptions – Just look at this clip where people say no such thing”.

It’s no secret that there’s a huge focus within Activision to somehow create a Call of Duty MMO. In fact, they’ve blatantly stated as much.

However, there’s been no talk of ever making people subscribe to a standard retail game. There’s simply nothing to support that.

Like I already said, I believe Black Ops will have subs, as an option and in order to unlock the full potential from the game. Basic multiplayer will most likely remain included in the orifginal purchase price.

There has been so many articles in the past month to support this theory with Bobby himself saying “I would have Call of Duty be an online subscription service tomorrow,” and Pachter throwing his 2 cents in with words to a similar effect.

Its gonna happen imo. If, how and when, nobody on this, or any other forum knows.

robster really wants to pay to play.

Robster doesnt play COD.
Robster is merely expressing an opinion.

robster sounds tasty. the robster special $4.99, any ideas?

It’s ultimately ActiVision’s choice, & with the way Kotick kisses up to the board, i would not be surprised if an addition fee did come to Live & PSN just for CoD, either that or they will make it a pc exclusive subscription based game like many of Bliazzard’s already are

no way to play when i have to pay

it’s so easy to say …

I don’t think this debunks anything. This is going to be a wildly unpopular move unless they can spin it right, there’s no way they’re going to let the cat out of the bag until they’ve got the beast that is the COD hype machine rolling again.

These devs are marching the party line.

Ah but why stop here? We’ve had them denying Kotick is a “total prick”, now it’s subscription fees for CoD.
What other stuff can we make Activission say? Bound to be some interesting rumours the news blogs can conjur up. Perhaps suggest sexuals relationships between management and barnyard animals? Or is that going to far?

Near future – probably not, sure… but medium term? Well, I think it’s clear Activision is seriously looking into it.

If Black Ops sells close to or even over MW2 and gets decent reviews as a non IW title then I think Activision will seriously consider the next entry having some form of fee – even if basic online is free they could charge for certain functions or equipment.

Heck, people spend money to wander around Home in a different T-Shirt, they’d clearly spend money for a better grenade attachment for an online warfare game.

It’ll happen with MW3, watch this space

So wait? We all get copies of Both games for FREE? What happened to the $60 price tag for the games?

@9 Except Bobby Kotick never said he’d introduce a subscription to a standard retail game. He’s talking about creating an MMO.

You’re reading what you want to read.

And Pachter only influences hysterical kids on the internet. The guy is wrong more than half the time, in an area where he claims to have expertise. No one with any serious interest in the industry would listen to a word he says.

No one has ever been succesful in creating subscriptions for standard games, and it makes absolutely no sense to do it. When Activision can charge 15 euro per map pack, and still see stellar sales, it makes absolutely no sense to offer a subscription instead of that. They already have a system that works for their standard games.