14 DAY TRIAL // Call of Duty Elite, the surprisingly popular online service from Activision, will continue to evolve, according to the company, who likens it to Microsoft’s Xbox Live, and will continue to impress both those with regular memberships and those with premium ones.
Activision didn’t exactly delight the legions of Call of Duty fans last year when it announced Elite and the service’s tumultuous launch did little to endear people to the online system.
Even so, there are now over 7 million Call of Duty Elite members, of which 1.5 million are paying a yearly membership.
According to Activision’s Vice President of Digital, Jaime Berger, the company will continue to improve upon the experience in order to satisfy fans, just like Microsoft has consolidated its Xbox Live online service over the years.
"If you look at Xbox Live now and look at Xbox Live four years ago, it's night and day. In a way, you never noticed it because it kept happening slowly. It will be no different for us, when we're talking two years from now... we're going to look at Elite and go 'wow, that has no resemblance to what it was at launch.' In lots of ways I can't predict because of that continuous investment. That's what we want; we want something that over time players see the value that keeps getting better and better and better," Berger told Games Industry.
Improvements will also be aimed at premium subscribers who pay to have access to special features and, of course, get all the DLC, for free, ahead of others.
"They will keep seeing the money that they invest in the services as a premium member reinvested in the service to make it better and better. I think that's the sign of a great service that...they see us reinvesting into it and making it better for everyone every month."
Are you pleased with the current state of Call of Duty Elite? Don’t forget that the next iteration of the series will be launched later this year alongside Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.