Kotick: "Gamers want CoD subscription model"

Richard

Mord's imaginary friend
Veteran
I just saw on Neowin a report of an interview fielded by Acti's CEO where he states gamers want to pay a subscription to play CoD "World":

Kotick said:
When asked what he would like at the snap of a finger, Kotick said "I would have Call of Duty be an online subscription service tomorrow. 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 clamoring for it."
 
Well if he means a well executed MMO FPS based on CoD, then sure ... he is right. There is a market for that I think, most existing ones are just not that well executed.

If he means charging a subscription for a matchmaking service then he is insane.
 
Well if he means a well executed MMO FPS based on CoD, then sure ... he is right. There is a market for that I think, most existing ones are just not that well executed.

If he means charging a subscription for a matchmaking service then he is insane.

bingo...
 
Well if he means a well executed MMO FPS based on CoD, then sure ... he is right. There is a market for that I think, most existing ones are just not that well executed.

If he means charging a subscription for a matchmaking service then he is insane.

Knowing Kotick, I have a feeling he's thinking more of the latter than the former - after all well executed MMO FPS's cost money to develop
 
Are there any console MMORPG's?
I cant think of any successful ones
I cant see sony/MS wanting them on there system either, i.e. how much do WOW players spend on other games? I imagine its bugger all if youre playing the same game 5 hours+ a day
 
The more quotes I read from this ahole, the more I fear Bungie made a huge mistake signing a long term contract with Activision. If they thought the work culture at MS was restictive, can you image how it would be with this jackass breathing down your neck?
 
The more quotes I read from this ahole, the more I fear Bungie made a huge mistake signing a long term contract with Activision. If they thought the work culture at MS was restictive, can you image how it would be with this jackass breathing down your neck?

Whatcha mean? Bungie are the ones making the CoD MMO.
 
A CoD MMO sounds compelling, but I don't think that's what Kotick had in mind. Knowing how ravenous for CoD the CoD crowd is, such a system could work charging for matchmaking. Honestly I could see it being beneficial if it meant a continuous stream of new content for the gamers themselves, like an Xbox Live except centered around a single franchise. Of course, with a monthly fee, I would expect this continuous DLC to be free as the subscription should handle development/service management costs.........but knowing crazy Kotick.........
 
And now you know what every CEO of a games publishing company is thinking. Only Kotick is the only one with the balls (or stupidity) to voice it out loud to the press. :D

EA has already done some ventures into things like this, only not with shooters (yet) but that's coming soon. They did it with NFS for instance, I don't think that lasted long.

FF XI was a fairly successful console MMORPG. I think it's actually still around also. Other than that? Not really.

And yeah, there hasn't really been a well executed MMOFPS. Although there have been a few. Sony tried one. There was also WW2 Online before that.

Heck, there's a MMORTS coming out soon, although for PC and not console.

I actually somewhat admire Kotick for saying the things every single games publisher CEO is thinking. :D At the very least it can be amusing.

Regards,
SB
 
I wouldn't pay a monthly fee to just play COD with matchmaking as that would be a rip-off.If it was a Planetside fps mmo, then maybe I would pay for that.Also, I highly doubt that Bungie would develop a COD mmo.Bungie's deal with Activision is just for 1 new game series and they have complete creative control as well.
 
I wouldn't mind paying for a subscription based FPS that continually released multiplayer maps and modes through out the year while dropping a new compelling single player campaign every year free to subscribers. I would pay $10 a month for a online FPS that offered a plethora of options like numerous and diverse maps that could accomodate 6 player matches up to 124 player matches. Where one could choose the appropiate map to fight in an all out war with choppers, jets and armored vehicles or a sniper match.

A online FPS that would allow more choices like fully personalized weapons, atire and stats, where something like your favorite weapon isn't based soley on the inherent strength of its class, but the time you spent working to get it to perform to your liking. Where some subscribers might forego heavy involvement in fighting and take up specialty like gun smithing and selling their wares for credits earned by others in multiplayer.

What I won't pay for is a COD version of WOW.

I find no compelling reason to invest into a game that attempts to build the same lame and old MMO based game mechanic. Spending dozens upon dozens of hours grinding through the same limited content just to add stat points just to do the same thing over again.
 
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Well, they do release one of these games every year. Seems like having a perpetual release and upgrade cycle on a subscription might make sense, to some degree. As long as they had significant yearly upgrades and frequent content upgrades, as well as some MMO type features without ruining the core gameplay, it might not be such a bad plan. $10 a month is a little steep.

I'm not saying I would pay for it, but I think a lot of COD fans would. They buy the games and all the expansions every year, which isn't cheap.
 
The math still works out in Activision's favor.

A best case retail scenario puts the game at $60 and 2 DLC packs at $30. Repeated each year, that's $90 vs $120 for a subscription model per year.

Take that $30 and even going with 5million users, they're leaving a lot of money on the table, per year. The key here will be what comes first. Franchise fatigue or the MMO.
 
Yeah, they wouldn't do it if they didn't make more money, but I think they key for adding value is having some type of MMO features to expand the product. Not sure exactly what they could do. Maybe you could craft pants or something.
 
I wouldn't pay a monthly fee to just play COD with matchmaking as that would be a rip-off.If it was a Planetside fps mmo, then maybe I would pay for that.Also, I highly doubt that Bungie would develop a COD mmo.Bungie's deal with Activision is just for 1 new game series and they have complete creative control as well.

Yep Yep, Infinity Ward had complete creative control as well. See Activision wants to work WITH developers.
 
would you guys pay for dedicated server?

what if the introduce some *premium* online mode in COD, where they promise zero lag, but with a small fee...
 
Is a CoD MMO (real MMO, not subscribing for matchmaking) even CoD? If it's not why would CoD players want this? If it's just for matchmaking why would CoD players want this? [strike]Well they are buying 5 recycled/crappy maps for $15 so...[/strike]
 
would you guys pay for dedicated server?

what if the introduce some *premium* online mode in COD, where they promise zero lag, but with a small fee...

Even with dedicated servers, they'll have lag problems, unless they can guarantee that everyone is one hop from the server, which is impossible.

The way I see it, the only way this could work is if it carried true COD gameplay and not MMO-style heavily-automated gameplay. For example they could have to be some kind of meta-game on top of the matches, using world persistence. Maybe there would be a huge city map, divided into smaller sub-sections for factions to fight over. Have a dynamic front-line, and players quick match into sub-sections to help their faction push the front-line into enemy territory. That's just an example of the type of meta-game they'd have to push to make this worthwhile. Maybe they could integrate clans into faction strategy and have commander type functions to organize the meta-battle outside the smaller matches. These is completely random guesswork, but that type of idea is the only way I can see someone paying for this. That type of idea does seem more suited to a tactical game like Battlefield or Operation Flashpoint, where there is already some concept of open-world space, and not small alleyway type maps.

If it's just COD with dedicated servers, then I don't see why anyone would pay for it.
 
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