By now it’s understood that there will be a new installment of the Call of Duty series every year. We also know that there will be new map packs released occasionally, to get us by until the next game is released. However, it would seem that Activision wants to take things a step further. Rather than waiting months for new content, it may only be a matter of weeks.
The company believes that they may be able to better serve their customer base by releasing smaller, incremental updates more often, rather than bundling them all together every few months. I suppose it’s further proof that microtransactions are the future. While Activision hasn’t specified just how much they will charge for each smaller DLC, we can imagine that it will be significantly less than the $15 packs that we’re used to. Though, if you sign up for their $50 a year Elite subscription, then you won’t have to worry about buying the new content, and you’ll get it before everyone else.
According to Activision’s Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg “One of the things that was most appealing when we were researching these ideas with consumers is the idea of breaking up the DLC so that it comes more often and more regularly. We want to provide DLC to people more often and also experiment with more of a variety in the forms of playable content.”
That last part is the one I find most interesting. I’m happy to hear that they are looking to provide more than just a few new maps, but at the same time, it makes me worry. We already saw the company give an edge to players who pay, by giving double XP to those that buy Mountain Dew. Could we be looking at a future where you can buy upgraded guns for real money? I can’t say I’d be surprised if that were the case.