March 15, 2010

Activmoneyism

The price of the first Modern Warfare 2 map pack has been revealed. What would you expect to pay for some new maps? Does $3 sound good? Well there are going to be 5 of them. Maybe $5 or $8 or even $9.99.

Tough luck. It is $15! And there isn't anything else announced thus far. Just 5 new multiplayer maps. That is 1/4 the cost of the original game. It is quite obvious this is a huge money grab. There are 25 of million of copies of MW2 out there. What is $15 x 10 million? More money than 99% of video games will ever make. For 5 freakin maps, two of which are being brought back from COD:4.

It is clear now why Activision forced out the people who were possibly standing in the way of this gold train. They probably want to start pumping map packs out en mauss. They could easily be doing at least 1 new map a month. Keep people hooked on MW2 like it is a MMO. In the mean time they are not patching any game bugs or issues, just major exploits.

Even more astonishing is Activision is holding back royalty payments to Infinity Ward staff. Delayed payments means interest. The longer they hold the money, the more Activision reaps.

There is just no end to their corporate greed.