14 DAY TRIAL // When Activision held Analysts Day at the beginning of the week, we were all focused on the interesting announcements: the fact that a new James Bond themed game would be launched in 2009, even if no Bond movie is coming out; the fact that Infinity Ward would be doing another Call of Duty game also set for 2009 and that the number of Guitar Hero themed games is set to double by 2010.
So, it's no wonder that we missed this little piece of information supplied by Mike Griffith, who is the Activision Publishing Chief Executive Officer. He said that his company sees “strong opportunities to monetize online gameplay” before adding that “the average Call of Duty player has spent nearly five full 24-hour days of their lives online since purchasing the game”.
The troubling fact is that the Activision man is not clear on the specifics of the monetization. Infinity Ward has already created map packs for Call of Duty 4 which are available for sale in digital stores. This element is going to receive more of an emphasis with Call of Duty: World at War for which Activision will offer premium and priced digital content and something called the “Day One Advantage”.
Having players engaged with new content, some destined exclusively for multiplayer matches, is one way of keeping up the appeal of a game, as Griffith pointed out while saying that Call of Duty is still retailing for full price and that used copies of the game are pretty hard to find.
But there's also the potential that Activision might try to monetize upcoming games by offering something similar to the paid subscription packages for free to play online MMOs. We could just see that in Call of Duty: World at War, the normal online gameplay will be free but to be competitive, you will have to pay Activision for individual pieces of superior equipment or even for some of the more exotic weapons.