CoD Makers, Publisher Squash Pay to Play Multiplayer Rumors
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has gone on record saying he wants to make the Call of Duty franchise subscription based, analysts have said the publisher should do it, and web speculation and rumors have hinted the transition to paid CoD multiplayer is on the way. But now Activision, Treyarch, and Infinity Ward have all issued statements saying there are no plans to charge for Call of Duty multiplayer.
Treyarch's Josh Olin was the first to throw a molotov cocktail at the rumor mill, leaving no room for doubt about CoD: Black Ops: "No, you will not have to 'Pay to Play' #CODBlackOps Multiplayer either," Olin tweeted. "Rumor -> Squashed."
Activision issued a statement to our friends at IGN, declaring, "Reports of a subscription membership in Modern Warfare 2 are not true. Activision has ho plans to charge gamers to play Call of Duty multiplayer."
Not wanting to be left out of the rumor-rebuttle rounds, Infinity Ward community manager Robert Bowling tweeted: "Modern Warfare 2 subscription plan rumors going around. For the record, nobody has to pay to play COD or MW2 multiplayer, nor will they."
Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, who has encouraged Activision to charge for CoD multiplayer, remains undeterred. In a statement issued this morning, Pachter said: "I don't want to call out any of the blog posts or tweets or statements to IGN as untruthful. Rather, I think that they probably are true: Activision won't require people to play for multiplayer, but I think that they will find a way to offer a premium experience for a fee, whether that takes the form of subscription, pay-as-you-go, microtransactions for virtual goods, tournament fees or some combination."
Call of Duty: Black Ops is set to ship on November 7 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, and Windows PCs.
Sharkey says: I'm not a Pachter fan, but I agree with him on this one. In some way, shape, or form, Activision will, sooner rather than later, begin charging gamers to play online.