The way Activision rapes our collective wallets may soon extend beyond the initial purchase of a game, in special regards to that of the hugely popular Call of Duty franchise.
At the recent BMO Capital Markets conference, Activison Chief Financial Officer Thomas Tippl said the company is looking to incorporate a new method of monetizing the Call of Duty and Guitar Hero franchises.
As you know, Activision has World of Warcraft under its hood, and we all know what a money-maker that system is, but don’t worry, the publisher isn’t akin to replicating that method. Tippl said that system is difficult to replicate, but players should expect new monetization models for its other titles soon enough.
This is exactly what he said.
“It’s definitely an aspiration that we see potential in, particularly as we look at different business models to monetize the online gameplay,” said Tippl. “There’s good knowledge exchange happening between the Blizzard folks and our online guys.”
“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,” he added. “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.”
He also said that gamers are willing to pay additional fees, so long as the benefit is significant.
“Our gamers are telling us there’s lots of services and innovation they would like to see that they’re not getting yet. From what we see so far, additional content, as well as all the services Blizzard is offering, is that there is demand from the core gamers to pay up for that,” Tippl explained.
Obviously this is all chatter at the moment, so don’t expect to have to pony up more than you’re already paying to get online, but be warned; Bobby Kotick wants your money!
Source: IGN
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