Supprised to see the excitement surrounding the anouncement from Activision that Call of Duty Elite will now be free, previously in the UK this was £34.99 or $49.99. In the couple of hours after the anouncement was made a quick google search showed almost 3 million hits, every one I have seen is praising their brave model of giving such a premium service away to their customers for nothing.
As a footnote to this wonderful giveaway there were a further 2 anouncements with regards to their new release Black Ops 2. Aparently having an Elite account no longer gives you access to the multiplayer maps in monthly installments, these are however available by purchasing a season pass! Yes you read that right, they took away what was worth paying for Elite, offered the remains for you for free and instead charge you a season pass for the previously included DLC map packs for £34.99 or $50. Unless you are a goldfish you would recognise those numbers as familiar because they are the same as the Elite subscription charge!
What this means is that in essence you are paying twice for your game, once for the game and again for anything beyond the bare bones maps. Each year Activision have increased the amount and the cost of the DLC for this anual game, meaning you are paying through the nose for a few more maps that in essence become obsolete when the new installement and then you pay for a new game and new maps. I say new maps, more often than not a fair number of these "new" maps are old maps that you got for free in earlier games.
Frankly Black Ops 2 is the first one in the series since World at War I won't be picking up on day one (or possibly ever) due to the compounded factors of paying Oliver North (if that doesn't make you spit teeth look him up) to promote the product and as I don't play multiplayer much (mostly prefering a game's narative to social online play) so the increasingly obsessive online community (split, as it is, mostly between children and people in their 30s/40s) that make any online play after week one pointless because the people who play it 24/7 gank your ass three seconds after spawning (don't even talk to me about the MW3 spawn camping!), one of my little brothers managed to clock up 38 days in online play in one year of MW2.
I might have still invested my money in the latest installment, play the single player campaign then spend 20 hours or so over the next year in online play but this is really more than I can stomach, I am not sure what pisses me off more, the fact that Activision thought they could con everyone with such an obvious scam or that it actually seems to be working.
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