Call Of Duty Offers Subscription Fee To The ‘Elite’

Reports are that Activision will launch an online service called Call of Duty Elite, which will have a subscription fee. It will offer new content like map packs that won’t be contained on the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Parts of the service will be free, including features inspired by social networks letting Call of Duty players meet with others who share interests. There will also be performance analyzing tools for the service, giving players stats on elements like their best weapon.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick doesn’t think the move will alienate players since the Call of Duty Elite subscription fee isn’t necessary to compete online, adding that it wouldn’t be possible if it was simply free. “This is an enormous investment,” he said.

Call of Duty has seven million daily players of the game who spend about seven full days a year playing the game against others online on average. Rob Dyer, senior vice president of publisher relations at SCEA, says he’s “very confident” other publishers will follow Activision’s lead. “There’s money to be made there,” he said.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Red Faction: Origins Director Discusses Why He Didn’t Play The Game

Red Faction: Origins will be coming out on Syfy that covers the interim story between Red Faction: Guerrilla and Red Faction: Armageddon with intermediary member of the Mason family, Jake. While Michael Nankin, director of the project, nor much of the cast are familiar personally with playing the series, he doesn’t think that will hold the movie back.

When asked if you needed to play the game for a project like this, Nankin said, “No. We were in a very long collaboration with THQ, and I think Andrew Kreisberg, the writer, spent more time analyzing the game and drawing from it, that once I came along, a lot of that gold had been mined already. So then I was able to take the script and make it work.”

The Red Faction games ended up being more of a general inspiration than anything else. “Anytime we had a choice to make between what we wanted and what the game had we just went with what we wanted,” says Nankin. “We were loyal to the game when it served us, which it did a lot.”

Source: Joystiq