I was a nerdy kid in high school. My three main activities were: debate, academic challenge, and gaming. Debate I found incredibly challenging and intriguing. Spinning facts, remaining purposefully vague, or completely lying in order to gain a trophy at the end of a busy Saturday was always a blast. Just like anything in politics or public relations, spin is king, and communicating a coherent vision for the future of your company (or political party) is paramount to your public image and the interest of your consumers.
In the past few months, there have been some major publishers who haven’t been able to communicate their plans for the future very eloquently, causing many WTF? moments among the gaming population. From Activision’s Call of Duty Elite details, to Nintendo’s Wii-U, there have been plenty of missed opportunities by publishers to excite their core audiences and to announce a clear vision for the future. The easiest way to solve this would be for these publishers to say what they mean. Conversely, it would serve the gaming community well to not get caught up in the giant hype machine that these companies create. Activision: you’re first on my list.
Get What You Pay For
Activision doesn’t envision the future of CoD as containing a persistent, constantly changing and frequently updated world, rife with new content for players to enjoy and explore, and that just might be the problem. When Call of Duty: Elite was first announced, Activision informed the teeming masses of a system that included stat tracking, a more expansive clan system, and a social networking system that matches players with those of similar interests. When first reported, Activision made it sound as if basic functionality like clans and stats would be ‘premium’ services, only accessible by paying a monthly subscription fee. This was later revealed to be only partially correct, as Activision has yet to reveal which of these aspects will be free or premium, more than likely waiting for the feedback from the beta in mid-July.
This seems to be the problem with Activision when it comes to Call of Duty: it is never enough that Activision’s yearly installments are purchased by the millions, the company can never stop trying to milk more and more money out of gamers on an annual basis. The core issue regards value. You may remember my last editorial where I urged EA to rethink the true value of some of the services that the company provides. What Activision is attemptingto do is a chilling parallel to EA’s online pass. Overcharging for services that are given away for nothing by other companies (bungie.net has fantastic stat tracking and many other free services) is a dangerous road to travel down; then again, it’s always up to the consumer whether or not he or she wants to pay for services like these.
What bothers me most about this is Activision’s ‘wait and see’ approach to a pay model like this, all the while remaining vague as to what exactly this model is. If you are a Call of Duty player, odds are you pay sixty dollars a year for the product. Combine this with the multiple map packs, each of which are fifteen dollars, and it isn’t an exaggeration to say that the average Call of Duty gamer spends around 120 dollars a year on the franchise, twice the retail price of the game. There is a completely different argument to be made concerning the price of the map packs, and I won’t be addressing that here; gamers spend enough on CoD.
The MMO Question
Now I know that many CoD players would try and compare a monthly fee (which Activision has said will be lower than normal subscription-based entertainment services) to a monthly fee for a game like World of Warcraft, also published by Activision Blizzard. I could never agree to such a comparison, for so many reasons. WoW is a constantly changing world, updated frequently with new content, and it is gigantic. These gamers’ fees manage the unfathomable infrastructure of building such a dynamic world daily, as well as paying the large staff that has the daunting task of maintaining such a behemoth. Take, for instance, the recent Cataclysm event. This event and subsequent expansion basically remade WoW in it’s entirety, every zone changed, every quest was altered and the physical landscape of the world was improved in one way or another. There can be no comparison, unless Activision and Infinity Ward (or Sledgehammer Games) hope to release expansions to constantly update and improve Modern Warfare 3 and do away with the plans for an inevitable Modern Warfare 4.
There is an argument to be made for a Activision’s practices, albeit an unfair one. Activision is in the business of making money. And as long as gamers are willing to pay for content, that should entitle any publisher to charge for whatever they wish. This seems fair; however, I would make the argument that Activision isn’t doing much to ensure brand loyalty. A responsible publisher usually gives back to the community that supports it, whether it’s throwing in free DLC or discounts on other products. This creates a bond between the gamer and his or her favorite franchise, allowing the publisher to ask more from the gamer and vice-versa. Activision has made it abundantly clear that it has no need for brand loyalty, as its games will always sell millions of copies. To that, I say that even the best franchises have their downfalls. Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and the Tony Hawk series are all perfect examples of declining franchises. Brand loyalty should be one of a publisher’s main goals, as it benefits everyone involved.
So where does this leave us? Are we doomed to be powerless over the publishers who routinely undermine our gaming experiences by nickel and diming us every step of the way? In situations like this, where it appears the entire industry is adopting a model of day-one DLC, preorder bonuses, and online passes; the only action we can take is to vote with our wallets. That is, at least until publishers find a way to ban used games, which is probably coming. And, as Activision’s PR rep Illidan Stormrage has warned us: you are not prepared.
As always you can follow me on Twitter @JamesMcCaulley or email me at james.mccaulley@pixelatedgeek.com. Please feel free to leave comments below.