Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has never made a secret of the fact that he’s in it for the money. As far as most people are concerned, he doesn’t care about the integrity of the industry, and he truly wants to gouge gamers for every cent he possibly can. Naturally, the brunt of all that is hearsay, but he’s never really done anything to supersede that perception. Instead, he almost seems to enjoy his enemy-of-the-people image.
One of his more controversial statements recently was his outspoken desire to charge Call of Duty players a subscription fee to play online. At the time, Kotick told the Wall Street Journal that if he had one wish, Call of Duty would be “an online subscription service tomorrow.” Now a video has surfaced in a 360 Junkies forum that appears to show a glitch that reveals the company’s plan to charge for online access. A suspicious menu apparently popped up when one player attempted to join his friend’s game.
Uh-oh. The video comes with this explanation from forum user PwnShop: “I was trying to join a friend’s session on MW2 the other day and had this screen pop up. It clearly says at the top of this menu: “Modern Warfare 2 Membersh”, in which we can confidently assume that the last word is “Memberships”. If you’ll notice at the bottom is an option to “Add Microsoft Points”, clearly indicating that this was intended to be a menu for purchasing different levels of Membership, presumably memberships would have been offered in a variety of durations.”
Keep in mind, readers, that there’s a gigantic possibility that the video is a hoax meant to stir up backlash against Activision. Even if it’s real, there’s still the possibility that Activision created the menu and then scrapped the plan to charge subscription fees after, or even before, the outcry that followed Kotick’s statements. Why haven’t there been more reports of this, if it is real, and is it normal for the white text to overlap the darker blue box like it does in the video?
Unless Activision comes out with an official statement, the answers to those questions will likely never be known. Even if they were to issue something official, it would probably be along the lines, “Activision currently has no public plans to charge for Call of Duty‘s online features.” That wouldn’t really put anyone’s fears to rest, so they might as well not bother.
Why’s Kotick so adamant about his desire to charge loyal fans even more money in addition to their internet connections and Xbox Live Gold subscriptions? For one thing, he’s unhappy that publishers don’t receive any revenue from all the money Xbox Live rakes in. Charging for Call of Duty access would be one way for Activision to feel like they’re getting a piece of that pie. They could even be rolling out the plan as part of the Black Ops release this November, attempting to reel in subscriptions with the appeal of the newest Call of Duty game, set in Vietnam.
Will anyone actually buy it, though? Considering the popularity of the franchise and the eccentric nature of Modern Warfare‘s online player base, anything is really possible. There’s no doubt that many would subscribe out of sheer ignorance, like the millions of people who spend money on sunglasses for their Xbox 360 avatars. While the number of online players would no doubt decrease, Activision would be getting a lot more money from those who remained. Let’s watch how this one develops.
