Just like that, everyone’s hopes and dreams about possibly buying the next premium Call of Duty installment for less than $70 has died.
As per a statement sent to Xfire by an Activision spokesperson, Sledgehammer Games’ upcoming Call of Duty entry, Modern Warfare 3, will be a premium release and will be available to buy for $70 – the same price point as its record-setting predecessor.
As stated in numerous Activision Blizzard quarterly conference calls, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is a premium release. It will be priced accordingly at $70.
Prior to this confirmation, it was reported that Activision Blizzard had plans to release Modern Warfare 3 for a low price, somewhere below $40, in what would have been a true rarity in this day and age.
This led to much speculation within the Call of Duty community. It’s a move that some believed was a way for the publisher to soften the blow of a potential onslaught of negative reactions and reviews to what has been described by many as a glorified DLC to last year’s launch.
Over the past year, it was extensively covered across numerous outlets that the now-confirmed premium release was a DLC for Modern Warfare 2. However, some held out hope that Activision Blizzard would at least try to make this year’s game more accessible, if only because another former annual fixture, Assassin’s Creed, is going the same route.
While the official pricing of Modern Warfare 3 is no doubt disappointing to fans who were previously expecting to spend less money to be able to play the latest Call of Duty game, it isn’t completely surprising.
The most recent Activision Blizzard quarterly conference calls have specifically referred to Modern Warfare 3 as a “premium release”.
Between the growing costs of video game development and the general community’s increasing aversion towards game series yearly release strategies, more companies have “evolved” and tried to stay away from pushing out a new title every year. But, it’s now clear that, despite all of the earlier rumblings, Activision Blizzard has no plans to be a part of this growing trend.
Then again, unlike the others, Activision Blizzard is uniquely positioned to continue its annual shuffling of studios in its effort to constantly put out a new Call of Duty game, regardless of presumed quality. Even way before the soon-to-be-closed Microsoft acquisition, Activision Blizzard has routinely employed roughly a dozen studios to work on its marquee franchise – Modern Warfare 3 is no exception.
The only hope for players to get Modern Warfare 3 at a discount now is for Activision Blizzard to sell it for $40 to those of us who already own Modern Warfare 2, and then price it at $70 as a standalone release for newer players, if only to make it easier for users to justify the cost of buying a new entry not even a full year after the release of last year’s outing. But, but don’t count on this.
If it’s any consolation, Modern Warfare 3 is still coming out on the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 when it hits the store shelves in November.
