The lights are on
UPDATE: Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling has responded via Twitter to the video circulating the Internet seemingly indicating a paid subscription model for Call of Duty.
Bowling's Tweet: Modern Warfare 2 subscription plan rumors going around. For the record, nobody has to pay to play COD or MW2 multiplayer, nor will they.
ORIGINAL POST [July 19 2010 12:30 PM]: Well, it looks as though Activision might be doing more than merely thinking about adding a subscription model to its successful Call of Duty franchise. If a video from 360 Junkies is to be believed, such a framework is already in place.
According to the clip's description, a player was trying to join a friend's game in progress and got a peek at a little something extra. A screen says "No memberships are available at this time. Please try again later," under a Modern Warfare 2 Memberships heading.
Earlier in the month, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick claimed that as many as 60 percent of Xbox Gold members paid for the service specifically to enjoy online Call of Duty matches. He voiced his dismay with Microsoft, saying "We don’t really participate financially in that income stream. We would really like to be able to provide much more value to those millions of players playing on Live, but it’s not our network."
What do you think? Is the video legit? Does it make sense for Activision to try to make even more money from the Call of Duty franchise?
Email the author Jeff Cork, or follow on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and Game Informer.
activision are easily the greediest company ever in videogames, this kills any thought i had of getting a new call of duty, im going to presume they are going to add this to psn as well so im done, boycott activision
Uh oh.
Boooooooo!!!!!!!
if they do this looks like i`m not playing call of duty online
people who play call of duty diserve it.
A couple of creedy CFO's are going to ruin the COD franchise by milking the biggest gamebase in the industry with sub-par DLC, etc.
Let the community create their own DLC for free!
Well of course they're going to try something like this! From the money they're making off of MW2 already, they'd be foolish not to do it.
If the commercial is correct with the game having over 20 million players, and with a service charge, say $10 a month, that's a huge amount of cash.
For the sake of free online gaming for other games, I pray this does not happen.
WTF!!!!!!!!!!!! if this happens I'll break my call of duty disk in half and send it to them with a pile of crap on it
That would be the worst thing for Activision to do. If people love the online and they have to pay for it, I wouldn't b surprised if Call of Duty sales go in the dumpster. I play on the PlayStation 3, so I get free internet, but Pay 2 Play is stupid (no offense Xbox, full offense to Activison). To Treyarch- Don't be partners with Activision if you want a lot of $$.
This sounds like the perfect reason for a boycott of activision products if its actually true and goes into effect.
sounds like activision is getting a little TOO greedy.
Something about the screen shot doesn't seem legit to me. Regardless, this is going to be the final straw that forms my unwavering allegiance to EA if this is the case.
I don't think even a series as popular as CoD can get away with this. There's way too many great/better alternatives for players to go running to. I haven't picked up Modern Warfare 2 since Bad Company 2 came out, but I had planned on at least giving Black Ops a look. If this subscription business is true, I won't even consider trying this game.
I would think that now wouldn't be the time for Activision to be taking risks like this after their divorce with Infinity Ward.
I'll cut my statement off now before it reaches official rant length...
Time for Call of Duty to get milked for all it's worth, since they can't do it with the "Hero" games that much anymore.
F---- NO!!! IM NEVER GONNA PLAY IT IF THERE GONNA MAKE ME PAY FOR IT!!!!