Move over, Michael Pachter. I can make random guesses about the videogame industry and sometimes have them come true as well! Yesterday, writing about Black Ops 2’s rumoured Season Pass, that I peered in to my crystal set of balls and guessed that COD: Elite would soon become a free service. Not 3 hours later, we received a press release saying just that.
“We’ve learned a lot in our first year of Call of Duty Elite, and we’re very proud that we over delivered on our commitment of playable content to our premium members,” said Activision Publishing CEO, Eric Hirshberg in said press release. “What we have realised is that several of the Call of Duty Elite services which are currently only available to our premium members for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 are things that would further unite, engage and delight our player community. So we are going to make them free for Call of Duty: Black Ops II.”
Since launching last year, 2.3 million suckers players of the nearly 13 million registered Elite users have paid for premium Elite subscriptions. Soon, their subscriptions will lapse and they’ll be moved over to the same free Elite that you’ll all soon enjoy when Black Ops 2 releases next month.
Activision’s probably done this because they’ve realised they can make more money selling the map packs as a $50, discounted Season Pass instead of a $50 premium subscription. either way, you’ll still be paying nearly twice the retail cost of the game for it to be “complete.”
“For Call of Duty: Black Ops II, DLC Map Packs will be a separate offering from Call of Duty Elite. The Season Pass will be a great way to acquire all four Map Packs at a discount, but if our fans would rather take it one Map Pack at a time, then we’ll offer each pack á la carte for anyone who wants it. What we aren’t doing is requiring a paid membership to access the great player services for Call of Duty: Black Ops II and we’re thrilled to offer all of Elite’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II features to players for free.”
Here’s what you’ll get with your soon-to-be-free Elite subscription:
- Player HQ – Track Call of Duty: Black Ops II performance with rich game statistics, including enhanced match information such as heat maps and recent match data; track challenges and extensively modify your classes like never before using Treyarch’s new Pick 10 Create-a-Class system.
- Clan HQ – Join an existing clan or start your own, invite friends and then take part in Call of Duty: Black Ops II clan competitions with cool digital prizing.
- Zombies Support – For the millions of Zombies fans out there, now you can track your Zombies personal statistics and compare it to other players’ around the world.
- Call of Duty Elite TV – Launching with tablet support with Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the new Call of Duty Elite TV will deliver a renewed community focus featuring developer tips and strategy programming, custom class overviews and more.
Social Sharing and Notifications – With Call of Duty Elite’s new notification system, you can stay updated with what is going on in Call of Duty: Black Ops II, as well as communicate directly with your clan.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will be released for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on November 13. Because I can obviously tell the future, I predict it will sell pretty damned well.
Take THAT, Pachter!
Last Updated: October 16, 2012
