It looks like Activision likes the idea of monetizing online gameplay for more than just World of Warcraft. Speaking at the BMO Capital Markets Conference this week, Activision CFO Thomas Tippl said he liked the idea of spreading the WoW business model to other games in the Activision lineup. From the context, it sounds like that means subscription fees, which would make all sorts of people unhappy.
“We have great experience also on Call of Duty with the success we had on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. A lot of that knowledge is getting actually built into the Battle.Net platform and the design of that,” Tippl said. “I think it’s been mutually beneficial, and you should expect us to test and ultimately launch additional online monetization models of some of some of our biggest franchises like Call of Duty.” So there’s also some potential for microtransactions, possibly for map packs or special equipment.
Tippl also mentioned the demand from the gaming community to pay for extended support for games. Now I’m not sure why that would be the case, especially for games like Call of Duty. I usually find it worse for FPS games to get tons and tons of maps. That says nothing of the backlash from PC players over paying for something that has traditionally been available for free if Activision goes the subscription route.
Whatever Activision chooses, it probably won’t be good for anyone. I understand the need to make money for the fast-approaching day people stop buying Rock Band, but maybe this isn’t the best way to do that.
