I miss thoe good old days too where we could buy a game and it was the whole game and nothing else at no extra cost but those days have died since now it's all about profit margins and chunks of pricy "DLC".FoolKiller said:
Call of Duty: Elite Could Make Similar Services "A Necessity"
- Thread starter Marshall Honorof
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Hmm...
*looks at money stash for the year* Buy Skyrim/Mass effect 3 and call it good till summer when I get a job again, or chalk up insane amounts of money for another CoD game...
If CoD is your thing, I can see -some- incentives to this, but this is activision we're talking about, you know, the guys who strip-mine every franchise for money down to its core and then throw it away? I'm sure they'll find some way to get even MORE money out of people through this...
With games as expensive a hobby as they are though, I don't see a point to getting the new CoD, especially since they're going to charge you 15, 30$ for things that should have been in the game.
Course, I've been seriously cutting back on multiplayer games. Too much stress and not enough fun. (I've become much happier since I've stopped.)
*looks at money stash for the year* Buy Skyrim/Mass effect 3 and call it good till summer when I get a job again, or chalk up insane amounts of money for another CoD game...
If CoD is your thing, I can see -some- incentives to this, but this is activision we're talking about, you know, the guys who strip-mine every franchise for money down to its core and then throw it away? I'm sure they'll find some way to get even MORE money out of people through this...
With games as expensive a hobby as they are though, I don't see a point to getting the new CoD, especially since they're going to charge you 15, 30$ for things that should have been in the game.
Course, I've been seriously cutting back on multiplayer games. Too much stress and not enough fun. (I've become much happier since I've stopped.)
I sometimes find it hard to believe that I joined a community that's collectively this stupid.
More than half of you are saying the same thing, and you were proven wrong a very long time ago, and a good bit more of you saw CoD and Elite in the title and ran in to bash Activision without reading the article.
But, hey, what does Activision know? They've only been doing this for 32 years. They've only published some of the highest selling games ever, and only make billions of dollars on their ideas, which every other publisher soon tries to imitate.
More than half of you are saying the same thing, and you were proven wrong a very long time ago, and a good bit more of you saw CoD and Elite in the title and ran in to bash Activision without reading the article.
But, hey, what does Activision know? They've only been doing this for 32 years. They've only published some of the highest selling games ever, and only make billions of dollars on their ideas, which every other publisher soon tries to imitate.
No thanks. You can keep your shitty shooters, I'm not subscribing to every single service they come up with.
Next up: Pay an additional 10 dollars to sprint, reload, jump, throw grenades, and switch weapons!!!
Not to mention the naivety it takes for people not to think this is ActiBlizzard testing the waters for required sub fee for online.Rawne1980 said:
Also I wouldn't put it past them to start calling map packs "expansion packs" and charging for them. Making stuff like gun packs DLC.
Absolutely not. As long as gaming exists this service will absolutely never be Necessity for ANYONE except those trying to make a profit off the service. At most, for some consumers it would be a luxury.
The disgustingly sad thing is that It makes perfect sense for Activision to say this. They want getting subscription fees from all of their titles to become an industry standard. Astoundingly If you want support from the gaming community seemingly all you have to do is repeatedly tell the community what you want them to think. Granted that technique can never work all the time, but the simple fact is that there are more than enough mouth breathing morons to actually fall for it. And as the stupid and gullible adopt it so begins the march toward widespread adoption and standardization. It does not take long for those who have more money than sense to become the early adopters and eventually it becomes a situation of "keeping up with the Joneses" where over time less vapid players start to trickle in because of what will come after the services launches, its imposed inferiority complex for not having Elite. After being exposed with constant reminders of how much better it is with their service, defenses get wore down and even some of the best forget why they were even resisting in the first place.
Yes, It is a smart move on Activisions part.... if you give two shits about Activisions profits.
TL;DR
Precedent. This is the field that we are playing on right now. These are the players and this is how they behave. So for the love of all that is decent that is left in this world, people have got to stop looking as far as their own personal wants and desires and evaluate what the future might bring and the impact of their individual actions and decisions. Anyone who falls for this marketing gimmick might be helping themselves in the short term, but they are hurting themselves and literally millions of people in the long run.
The disgustingly sad thing is that It makes perfect sense for Activision to say this. They want getting subscription fees from all of their titles to become an industry standard. Astoundingly If you want support from the gaming community seemingly all you have to do is repeatedly tell the community what you want them to think. Granted that technique can never work all the time, but the simple fact is that there are more than enough mouth breathing morons to actually fall for it. And as the stupid and gullible adopt it so begins the march toward widespread adoption and standardization. It does not take long for those who have more money than sense to become the early adopters and eventually it becomes a situation of "keeping up with the Joneses" where over time less vapid players start to trickle in because of what will come after the services launches, its imposed inferiority complex for not having Elite. After being exposed with constant reminders of how much better it is with their service, defenses get wore down and even some of the best forget why they were even resisting in the first place.
Yes, It is a smart move on Activisions part.... if you give two shits about Activisions profits.
Now actually, this has the potential to be 100% absolutely true dependent on the structure of the service and if the service grants DLC as a subscription benefit. Except for one crucial point. It is still both completely possible and highly likely that it can be a benefit for CoD faithful while at the same time being something that hurts everyone who plays any sort of video games.
Its called precedent. Once one has been established it opens the door for more people to use, exploit and expand upon that idea. If you would like an example I direct your attention Here
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113063-Sony-Attempts-to-Block-All-Future-PSN-Class-Action-Lawsuits
to the case of Sony skirting constitutionality by misinterpreting a SCOTUS decision intended to be directed at employees and made it applicable to all users of their PSN network by updating their ToS EULA on 9.15.11 in response to the nightmare of litigation Sony had to endure for failing to keep their networks secure and all those evil little individuals were mercilessly ganging up on the poor defenseless multinational conglomerate. So they use the SCOTUS decision to make it easier to swat away pesky individualized arbitration.
Now... Flash forward. EA sees this action by Sony and feels it would be a very sound preventative measure to put in place to defend itself before they actually need it. And after careful deliberation of implemntation, Calculating the impact of what this would do, evaluating the actual need for it their exhaustive study came to a close and it was decided it was in fact a sound decision...........ELEVEN DAYS LATER. Seriously it took EA all of 11 days. Barely two full weeks before they implemented the exact same Idea Sony did so they could defend their profits without batting an eyelash at ursurping individual rights in favor of corporate profit.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.314954-EA-Changes-Origin-Terms-of-Services-Forbids-Class-Action-Lawsuits
And the worst part about it is, that regardless how unconstitutional it is, or how it is likely to be overturned once people see examples like this in practical application, you can honestly at least understand Sonys justification for doing something this unethical regardless of its temporarily legally protected status considering how rough of a year they have had. When times turn tough, its easy to consider doing more questionable things. EA however has no such justification to fall back on. EAs case basically boils down to "Oh look they dont have to adhere any more? Sweet! we wont either!" So were now going to eventually see most if not all major companies adopt this, until such time as this is overturned for its unconstitutionality and when that day comes, they will fight and resist it tooth and nail with as much money as they can throw at it.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113063-Sony-Attempts-to-Block-All-Future-PSN-Class-Action-Lawsuits
to the case of Sony skirting constitutionality by misinterpreting a SCOTUS decision intended to be directed at employees and made it applicable to all users of their PSN network by updating their ToS EULA on 9.15.11 in response to the nightmare of litigation Sony had to endure for failing to keep their networks secure and all those evil little individuals were mercilessly ganging up on the poor defenseless multinational conglomerate. So they use the SCOTUS decision to make it easier to swat away pesky individualized arbitration.
Now... Flash forward. EA sees this action by Sony and feels it would be a very sound preventative measure to put in place to defend itself before they actually need it. And after careful deliberation of implemntation, Calculating the impact of what this would do, evaluating the actual need for it their exhaustive study came to a close and it was decided it was in fact a sound decision...........ELEVEN DAYS LATER. Seriously it took EA all of 11 days. Barely two full weeks before they implemented the exact same Idea Sony did so they could defend their profits without batting an eyelash at ursurping individual rights in favor of corporate profit.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.314954-EA-Changes-Origin-Terms-of-Services-Forbids-Class-Action-Lawsuits
And the worst part about it is, that regardless how unconstitutional it is, or how it is likely to be overturned once people see examples like this in practical application, you can honestly at least understand Sonys justification for doing something this unethical regardless of its temporarily legally protected status considering how rough of a year they have had. When times turn tough, its easy to consider doing more questionable things. EA however has no such justification to fall back on. EAs case basically boils down to "Oh look they dont have to adhere any more? Sweet! we wont either!" So were now going to eventually see most if not all major companies adopt this, until such time as this is overturned for its unconstitutionality and when that day comes, they will fight and resist it tooth and nail with as much money as they can throw at it.
TL;DR
Precedent. This is the field that we are playing on right now. These are the players and this is how they behave. So for the love of all that is decent that is left in this world, people have got to stop looking as far as their own personal wants and desires and evaluate what the future might bring and the impact of their individual actions and decisions. Anyone who falls for this marketing gimmick might be helping themselves in the short term, but they are hurting themselves and literally millions of people in the long run.
Exactly. This wouldn't be an issue if they weren't absolutely right in thinking that, and the fact that they are makes me shake my head in disgust, not at them, but at the millions of people who are inevitably going to buy this shit.Rawne1980 said:
Here the thing, and I'm sure Im not alone on this.
People don't want to mix social networking with hardcore gaming. It works for casuals, because HERDERP I GET SEEDS IF I SPAM MY WALL. But seriously - no one wants to hear about how many headshots you got. How you were MVP. That sick no-scope, or a Deca-Kill with an AC130.
And further more, WHY PAY FOR STAT TRACKING? Plenty of websites do this for free. Plenty of companies (Alright... pretty much just Bungie) do this for free. HELL, BLIZZARD STAT TRACKS FOR FREE. AND THEIR FUCKING BLIZZARD. The people who want to charge your credit card 3 times for buying gold and gear from other players if you use real life cash.
I can see why they are doing this - but the demographics for social networking gamers and hardcore gamers don't really over-lap. Theres not a huge degree of people who play hardcore games AND Farmville.
Personally, I don't see this being a sustainable business model, especially CoD Elite. Your implementing a system that will equate to buying power. Even if this model doesn't explicitly say that right now, thats pretty much the only way to get things like that to sell. Its been tried, never to the same degree, but pretty close. And it always results in the direct selling of power.
Then guess what? You rip all the competition out of your game by directly selling power. And in cases like this, it doesn't matter how popular the franchise is, you're going to see people migrate away from it and its DLC because being on the recieving end of a user selling power is not fun, and being a person who has the power sold to them will either realize
A. This isn't fun because I'm going up against other people who bought power, which sucks all the originality out of the game.
B. If you do reign over the newbies, the game loses all fun. Sure, its fun to one shot a person. It funs for a few rounds, but then you just get bored because theres no threat.
C. The "benefits" being sold to you were not worth the price, and were useless. Good luck getting me to renew my subscription or buy another DLC pack.
Gamers already get nickeled and dimed. Hard. Very, very, very, very hard. Now CoD is proposing we pay extra money, on top of what we already bought, just to have access to items that are already on the disk? Charging us a yearly fee for if we want to be competitive?
I'm sorry, but if we, as gamers, ACTUALLY LET THIS HAPPEN, than everyone that buys the Elite package officially has to forefeit their right to complain about anything game related thats a direct result of publishers being asshats.
People don't want to mix social networking with hardcore gaming. It works for casuals, because HERDERP I GET SEEDS IF I SPAM MY WALL. But seriously - no one wants to hear about how many headshots you got. How you were MVP. That sick no-scope, or a Deca-Kill with an AC130.
And further more, WHY PAY FOR STAT TRACKING? Plenty of websites do this for free. Plenty of companies (Alright... pretty much just Bungie) do this for free. HELL, BLIZZARD STAT TRACKS FOR FREE. AND THEIR FUCKING BLIZZARD. The people who want to charge your credit card 3 times for buying gold and gear from other players if you use real life cash.
I can see why they are doing this - but the demographics for social networking gamers and hardcore gamers don't really over-lap. Theres not a huge degree of people who play hardcore games AND Farmville.
Personally, I don't see this being a sustainable business model, especially CoD Elite. Your implementing a system that will equate to buying power. Even if this model doesn't explicitly say that right now, thats pretty much the only way to get things like that to sell. Its been tried, never to the same degree, but pretty close. And it always results in the direct selling of power.
Then guess what? You rip all the competition out of your game by directly selling power. And in cases like this, it doesn't matter how popular the franchise is, you're going to see people migrate away from it and its DLC because being on the recieving end of a user selling power is not fun, and being a person who has the power sold to them will either realize
A. This isn't fun because I'm going up against other people who bought power, which sucks all the originality out of the game.
B. If you do reign over the newbies, the game loses all fun. Sure, its fun to one shot a person. It funs for a few rounds, but then you just get bored because theres no threat.
C. The "benefits" being sold to you were not worth the price, and were useless. Good luck getting me to renew my subscription or buy another DLC pack.
Gamers already get nickeled and dimed. Hard. Very, very, very, very hard. Now CoD is proposing we pay extra money, on top of what we already bought, just to have access to items that are already on the disk? Charging us a yearly fee for if we want to be competitive?
I'm sorry, but if we, as gamers, ACTUALLY LET THIS HAPPEN, than everyone that buys the Elite package officially has to forefeit their right to complain about anything game related thats a direct result of publishers being asshats.
Them being the leading team of money making bullshit and everyone following is somehow reassuring to the customer?-Samurai- said:
Seems to be alot of confusion howmuch all of it will cost at the end (and any good businessman will prefer it that way), just remember that the entire point of this service is to get more money off you.
I actually think it's interesting that they feel they can set up this sort of subscription model. I've seen several articles recently that state that games are generally overpriced, and that there needs to be a switch-down in the pricing of most games.
Potentially, that means that for the games with the very biggest fan following, and CoD certainly has that, they could actually RAISE the price.
On the other hand, the idea of paying a subscription for a game for which the single player will take 5-8 hours, and multiplayer that has never been more than distinctly average, when it's not downright broken (yes, even if you get the DLCs, you're still simply expanding the multi side, really) and one that effectively doubles the price.. well. No thanks.
Potentially, that means that for the games with the very biggest fan following, and CoD certainly has that, they could actually RAISE the price.
On the other hand, the idea of paying a subscription for a game for which the single player will take 5-8 hours, and multiplayer that has never been more than distinctly average, when it's not downright broken (yes, even if you get the DLCs, you're still simply expanding the multi side, really) and one that effectively doubles the price.. well. No thanks.
So a game that has grossed this company well over a billion dollars (For Black Ops alone) needs an additional 50/yr per customer to remain profitable? Get the fuck out of here. They already have one of (If not the) largest profit margin for a triple A title. This only makes me feel like raging out.
The entire point of any and every business is to make money off of you.Mr.K. said:
The pricing and services offered is in their FAQ, which people conveniently forget to read before coming on here and spewing ignorant hate that is so far from being correct that it's almost funny.
Activision has a habit of setting the industry standard, and I won't be surprised if Elite does great and many other publishers try to cash in on the same model.
I also find it hilarious that many of the people harping on Activision for "charging for services that other games provide for free(which is incorrect)" are paying $50 a year for Xbox Live.
"You're getting fucked already so why not bend over and take some more"?-Samurai- said:
You wouldn't by any chance work in the marketing department
