Gaming Giants Charge Premium Without Just Cause?

The latest sequel within the Call of Duty first person shooter game series has been on general public sale since midnight on the 8th November 2011 and it seems that the hype and anticipation surrounding the release of Modern Warfare 3 created an atmosphere like no other console game has ever done before but it seems that with the demand for the game, came issues for Activision, the brand behind the Call of Duty franchise.

With the anticipation of the game leaving millions of gamers rushing to get their hands on their version of the game that was tipped to, and did, break sale records within the first 24 hours of sales but with Modern Warfare 2, the previous title developed by the same creators, selling 4.7 million copies within the first day, Activision failed to see the 9.3 million titles being purchased on opening day and that resulted in devastation within their new ‘premium’ option that had been freshly developed for the latest instalment.

Modern Warfare 3 Elite had been taunted as a new addition that was going to intensify the gaming experience of players that bought the MW3 title but with the additional features came a new twist that upset gamers across the globe, yet another yearly fee to be added to their account.

Charging a premium for what the company claimed was going to offer a new ground breaking experience, with clans and titles being more powerful than ever before, seemed to split the gaming community but that didn’t stop millions of gamers subscribing to the Elite offering from the moment that the game hit the shelves.

The result of the interest and the element of the unknown was gamers paying out a fee for a yearly membership into the Elite aspect of the game, only for the servers that Activision had powering it to fail and be unable to handle the demand that came flooding towards it.

The MW3 Elite servers were soon blocked to any user, resulting in backlash from angry gamers that were demanding an explanation, something that they were given via social networking site Twitter, being told that “A surge of new Elite registrations” were the cause of the problems, showing that the reception of the new element of the game had been well received despite the questions of whether Activision were right in adding yet another expense onto a title that releases regular download content at a price.

When players have tried to access the Elite servers  they have been consistently shown the same message, telling them that traffic into the servers was at its ‘peak’ and that they should return to try again later.

With the Call of Duty franchise now valued at a huge £3 billion surely you would have expected Activision to have produced the game on servers that were capable of handling the huge number of gamers that they have had logging into their online section of the game over recent years, especially as they are charging for the chance to be part of the Elite section.

Activision have issued comment on the problems and have pledged that all those who have bought Elite membership will be issued with a further 30 days of membership once the problems have been rectified, possibly too little too late for any of the gamers according to the online gaming community with players claiming that they are set to turn the back on the title in order to purchase the game’s rival title, Battlefield 3.

 

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