A free online experience guaranteed for CoD fans in the future - so long as they can afford it.

Call of Duty, Gears of War and Halo - probably three of the most iconic games of our generation. Though each franchise has brought its own unique brand of realism or playability to the first person genre, it is their continued online success that has helped cement their position as market leaders, whilst ensuring each a place in gaming notoriety.

Despite their impenetrable sales and cult followings, all three have fallen prey to the commercialism that has engulfed the video games market in recent years and, through a combination of add-ons and extra map packs that regrettably become a requirement to continue online play, publishers such as Bungie and Activision continue to exploit the die-hard fan-bases that have made their titles so popular in the first place.

However, despite much suggestion that the Call of Duty franchise would eventually adopt a subscription-based model for its multiplayer, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg has categorically stated that these rumours were just that - rumours.

When challenged on the issue, Hirshberg reiterated the importance of free, online play to the series, stating that the “out of the box experience, connecting with the online community to play Call of Duty is absolutely integral to the experience and it’s not one we're going to attempt to monetize”.

With so many publishers continuing to milk their cash-cow franchises long after their release, it’s nice to see Activision showing some respect to its fan-base, a fan-base that has ultimately generated over 55 million unit sales and netted over $3 billion for them since 2003.

Conversely, while this latest press release may seem like a grand gesture from Activision, what has really changed? With the company continuing to release compulsory, costly add-ons across the online marketplaces of Xbox Live and PlayStation Online, would it be unfair to say that we, the consumers, are already part of a “subscription service” of some sort?

Just a thought...

Destructoid

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