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Activision absolutely, positively, will not ever charge players a surcharge to play Call of Duty multiplayer. That's the first thing "Uncle" Jay Puryear, managing director at Treyarch, wants to get out of the way. And you should listen to him, because he's a level 50 player with a prestige score of 15 in Call of Duty Elite, Activision's new social network for shooting purists. The other thing he wants to stress is how, used properly, Elite's deep stats-tracking system can make you a better Call of Duty player by showing you where your strengths and weaknesses are.
But really, we just want to know what they'll charge us for.
Traditionally, twitch-gaming FPS fans just love to sit and read numbers.
The Elite beta opens for Black Ops players on July 14, but the premium side of the service won't make its official debut until Modern Warfare 3 hits shelves this November. Uncle Jay and Activision as a whole are playing details of what you'll pay and what you'll get very close to the chest, almost to the point that it sounds like they're not completely sure themselves yet. Still, the new carrots they've dropped so far and the educated guesses we can make from there make an interesting — if not entirely compelling — case for joining up.
First, here's what we know.
- Elite "members" (the temporary term for premium subscribers) will get all downloadable content for free. That applies to Modern Warfare 3, not Black Ops. Activision will release their complete DLC plan well ahead of time — as opposed to announcing map packs a month or so in advance — so you'll know what that's worth.
- Players can participate in two kinds of daily challenges off the Compete tab. Events are judged contests (upload your best flamethrower kill footage) while Operations are stats-driven…say, highest Domination captures. Both are open to everyone, but Elite members can win prizes such as in-game badges or, as Puryear put it, "iPads, TVs, even cars."
Hey, Fred…I just compared your kill/death ratio to everyone in China, and you still suck.
Based on that information, here's what I suspect a premium Elite membership will entail. I stress that this is all speculation on my part.
- Elite premium membership will run you $15 a month. They don't want people buying a one-month subscription for five bucks, getting the DLC, then cancelling. Setting the monthly rate at the same price-point as their map packs easily negates that problem. They might offer discounted yearly or 6-month memberships, but then they risk re-opening that can of worms. A limited-time lifetime membership offer (like Tivo did) would be popular, but impractical.
- Black Ops players won't be able to join at a premium level. It won't have much DLC support going forward, and all the wording around premium bonuses specifically notes Modern Warfare 3. The push will be to buy the newer game, though Black Ops still gets the full range of Elite's free services.
- Members will get timed exclusives, but outside of cheap in-game stuff like badges, not exclusive content. They'll play new maps and new betas weeks, maybe even a month before non-members, or see CoD mini-movies before they escape to YouTube. But eventually, everybody will get just about everything they want to buy.
- You can only join one clan (as opposed to groups, which are more outside-interest based), and anybody can become a clan member, but you'll have to pay to create and run a clan. Hopefully, Activision will have a mechanism to transfer ownership if the leader drops their subscription.
Oh thank God…it's got some pictures, too.
So, will Elite be worth the money?
To some people, yes. To enough people? That's a tougher question. Puryear admitted their plans for Elite and the contests in particular would require a lot of back-end resources, and subscription rates drop off fast if members don't think they're getting value for money. Daily contests can keep people hooked, and making one of them non-skill based (and thus accessible to less-than-perfect shootists) is smart. Another smart move would be to drop DLC exclusively to Elite members on day one.
Either way, it's fair to call Elite a risky move. It's bigger in scope than Halo Waypoint, but could just as easily go the way of EA's Gun Club. And we won't find out just how serious Activision really is about it until November.