Premium service?

As CVG » reports, Activision seem to be hinting that a premium service may well be arriving to the Call of Duty series sooner rather than later. Activision's COO Thomas Tippl was at the Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. Technology Conference when he was asked if Call of Duty could ever match the subscription model used by World of Warcraft.

"I don't think there's a one size fits all.... There's no doubt that we are looking to extend recurring revenue models and in many ways we have already accomplished that - even on Call Of Duty, although it takes a different form than subscription.

Every year we have a great game, so every year we have recurring revenues that has a lot of zeros attached to it. We are expanding revenue during the in-between periods with additional content we've sold very successfully with map packs.

As we look into the future, there are new and innovative service offerings that could give players more choice. What we're not going to do is take anything away from players that they used to get today for the price they get it for today. I don't think that would be a good and smart business decision.

But I think we have a lot in our pipeline that we believe will provide great value for our players. So I think there's continued opportunity to expand the player base and to provide them with service offerings and products that can also enhance revenue growth" - COO Thomas Tippl

The above doesn't confirm that future Call of Duty's will have a premium service but it all definitely sounds very interesting. He did mention that they don't plan on cutting off the multiplayer experience that current fans get from the series, nor will they introduce a traditional subscription model. So although it looks like multiplayer will always be free, it's becoming increasingly likely that Activision will one day introduce some premium service.

This begs the question "What can a premium service provide?". There's a chance that as part of a premium service could result in free DLC for subscribers amongst other additional content. With the addition of the Theater Mode it also makes you wonder if they will ever charge a subscription service such as 'Bungie Pro'. Bungie Pro is a service for Halo games that requires you to pay 750 Microsoft Points for a year subscription and a few incentives includes a larger File Share as well as the ability to watch and share your clips in high quality and high definition formats.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has also recently commented on it, saying that Call of Duty could get "multiple entry points".

"As long as we keep providing value - whether it's in services, or new content or things like virtual items... There's so much we can do to provide value to our customers.

"They're willing to pay us for it and I think giving multiple entry points to consumers to figure out how to exactly play the game is something that's really important to building our audiences." - CEO Bobby Kotick

Of course, this is all just speculation. No premium service is announced and likely won't be for a long time (if ever).

Now lets get on to some happier news. In his latest tweet » Community Manager Josh Olin stated that Black Ops is "nearing completion". This means that in a few weeks the game should be 100 finished and gold with plenty of copies being manufactured in time for release. Here's hoping that the game doesn't end up being leaked before release...

Now it's time to do our routine check up on the official Black Ops forums. Vahn has once again been at it trying to calm people's misunderstandings and other worries.

The first thing is regarding the Ballistic knife's lunge. Here's what Vahn » had to say.

@JD_2020 didn't get it wrong. He was taken out of context. Having done dozens of interviews and extended interviews myself, I can tell you this sort of thing happens all the time.

We didn't put the Ballistic knife in as a replacement for Commando Pro.

The Combat Knife and the Ballistic Knife are set up exactly the same with regard to melee. They both run through the same exact system and both are tuned identically. I've checked it out personally.

Both of them have the auto rotation that has been mentioned in this thread, but you need to be standing virtually on top of the guy and he has to be in your line of sight to trigger it.

A lot of people have short-term memories or starting following the franchise more recently and have forgotten that for as much screaming and shouting as Commando Pro generated, their was an equal amount of screaming or shouting that you couldn't hit anyone with the knife.

We think what you'll play is a good compromise between the two extremes. It will have critics and it will have fans. We'll learn about that and we'll keep trying to get better like we always do. - Vahn

The next thing he talked about was Wager Matches and killstreaks. Many thought that Black Ops will have the Spyplace in Wager Matches but Vahn » confirmed the Wager Matches don't have killstreaks.

No killstreaks in Wager Matches, but we do use the radar.

Depending on the wager match mode, the radar will light up with enemies. It's used from everything to reduce camping to showing the leader so you can chase him down.


Courtesy of Black Ops 24/7

Honestly, if the premium service was something like getting DLC for free, then provided the payments worked out in my favour, or I was given access to exclusive DLC that didn't seperate me from nonpaying users (like map packs, unless there is a lot of premium users) then I'd probably get it.

but it if were "pay us & we'll give you a shiny new gun & that's it for a while" I certainly wouldn't bother.

As for the ballistics knife, I'm happy if it doesn't have a teleporting, lag switch effect like commando pro. If it acts just like a tac knife, which is a faster melee, I'm happy. So long as it isn't like the tac knife & has an extended range, even without commando -,-

It basically them repeating "No Commando..." and saying if you pay us money we'll give you DLC's early and free...

Nothing is confirmed. And like it's not likely to happen anytime soon.

I understand that, but that's pretty much what they've said.

Yeah... But they would have something to really make people want to get it.
Something like more guns, free DLC's, more maps (not DLC). Something like that.

That'd be the only way they could justify having a premium service. Getting things for free, and getting Premium Service exclusive DLCs. Whether that's extra guns, maps or DLCs in terms of add-ons, like callsign things/outfits for our player that kind of thing.

The whole premium service is retarded anyways. I hope they just do something like BioWare did for Mass Effect 2, where you just get the stuff because you bought it new. That'd be nice.

I have to agree Xeta. It'd only be viable if they have some extremely awesome stuff to offer the Premium Service buyers, without taking anything away from the regular users.