Now here’s a rumor that will stop many people in their tracks. An analyst at Wedbush Securities, “one of the largest securities firms and investment banks in the nation,” says that he’s “certain to [his] core” that Activision is planning a pay-to-play Call of Duty. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sound of millions of gamers around the country flipping out. Call of Duty “services,” and “new [and] innovative” ones at that? Sounds an awful lot like Activision is preparing for at least some form of pay-to-play.
I suppose Activision could take this in a few different ways. One, it could just outright charge people to play the games, which, eh, I’d doubt. Two, it could follow the hardly-innovative-at-this-point tract of delivering a free-to-play online multi-player game (or mode) while tacking on additional, “premium” content, content that you’d have to pay for.
Now the question to ask you guys: will this fly? How many of you are prepared to pay something like $5 per month for the privilege of playing Call of Duty? I’m sure Activision has worked it out where they only need, who knows, 10 percent of its existing playerbase to become premium members in order for this to work.
Today’s question is all about how big a success (or failure) would a pay-to-play Call of Duty be?
