Call of Duty and Subscriptions Fees. It's Not What You Think.

Someone design a better logo DOUBLE TIME!

So today Activision finally announced what the hell Call of Duty: Elite is and clarifies all those rumors about future Call of Duty (CoD) titles requiring a subscription fee.

Elite will not be a new game but a service that will work with CoD: Black Ops and future CoD titles and will have a free and paid tier to it.

But what is it exactly? Details after the jump.



Call of Duty: Elite is pretty much bungie.net, Halo Waypoint, the Rockstar Social Club, and Facebook rolled into one gigantic ball with Call of Duty slapped on it.

Activision broke it down into four main parts: Career, Connect, Compete, and Improve.

Career


Career is pretty much your bungie.net part of Elite. It will pull your stats from your Call of Duty career and pretty much let you break it down as you see fit. They got heatmaps, k/d ratio, previous match recaps, theater uploads, career summary, custom classes, and even leaderboards, both the friends and worldwide variety.

Connect


Connect is pretty much your social aspect of Elite. You can find and track your CoD buddies or even track people you haven't befriended as well. You will be able to send messages, create groups, create clans, and host videos too.

The cool thing about groups is that you can create whatever kind of group like using a hashtag like so:
#HaloisSuperior, #BattlefieldpwnsCallofDuty, #GameXcapeRulez.

And for the videos, using data from the game, Elite will automatically tag all the players in a given clip. It's kind of like Facebook with tagging people in photos except Elite does it for you and remembers everyones name.

So now once that guy who tomahawked you for the final kill in team deathmatch uploads that clip, Elite will autotag you and never let you forget the shame.


Compete


Remember those weekly and daily challenges for Halo Reach that were sort of addicting and made you try things you normally wouldn't have? Well Activision thought it was a good idea and is bringing it to Elite!

The challenges will range anywhere from "Upload a Clip", "Get 20 kills in TDM", to multiple week events like tournaments and leaderboard rankings.

The point to all of this though is that you will be able to win Elite Trophies (think achievements) to actual prizes. Prizes could be anything from a digital prize like a special tile for multiplayer, to real world prizes like a Jeep.

Black Ops Jeep. Only cool if you didn't pay for it.

Improve

And last but not least you have the Improve tab. This is pretty much your Call of Duty FAQ. It'll have info on every weapon, attachment, map, and perk that is in the game. It'll even have tutorial video for some of that stuff too.

Q and A

Now that those points have been broken down, let's answer any lingering questions you might have.

Q: What are the different features between the free tier and the paid tier?
A: No idea. All that Activision and Beachhead Studios said was that most of the features will be free but they didn't clarify which ones. Though they did say that the paid tier would include extra Call of Duty content including map packs. If it means free map packs then it could be worth it considering that a map pack runs at fifteen dollars for just one.

Q: How much will the paid tier cost?
A: Once again, no idea. All Activision had to say was the it would be "less than any comparable online entertainment service."

Q: What if I have multiple accounts (Multiple gamertags or owning on multiple consoles)? 
A: Unfortunately, if you have multiple accounts you will have to have multiple Elite accounts as well for each online ID. So you won't be able to track you PS3 buddies stats with your 360 account. No cross platform interactions!

Q: When does it go live?
A: The full version is to be release November 8th alongside Modern Warfare 3.

Q: Is there a way I can preview it?

A: There will be a beta running sometime in the summer using Black Ops. Sign up here.

Q: Which Call of Duty games will this work with?
A: So far only Modern Warfare 3 for sure. It won't utilize anything older than Black Ops and even though the beta will use Black Ops they are not sure if it will be supported once it fully releases.

Q: So will the Call of Duty games now require a subscription?
A: NO. You'll still get campaign, co-op, and multiplayer out of the box. The subscription fee will only be for the Elite service if you get the paid premium tier.

Q: How will you be able to access Elite?
A: Apparently you will be able to access it via the Elite website and via smartphone apps on iOS (iPhone/Ipod Touch) and Android. In game access is still a possibility.

So there you have it folks. If you have any questions about Elite that you would like answered leave them in the comments and I will try to add it to our Q&A or just leave us your thoughts on Elite. Will it be worth it in your eyes?


Sources: ign.com, kotaku.com