Whoops. Kinda sorta missed this, another pearl of wisdom from this week's BMO Capital Markets forum. Activision's CFO told conferees that extracting more dough out of players, via charging for certain online play or features, is something we should expect.
Here's what Tom Tippl told the gathering:
It's definitely an aspiration that we see potential in, particularly as we look at different business models to monetize the online gameplay. 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. 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.
And now that you're red-faced and rushing to the comments to say no way in hell would you ever pay for this, Tippl reminds:
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.
So, got that? He says practically demanding to pay up. So pay up!
Activision Hints at Call of Duty Online Plans IGN via VG247 and just about every one else.]