Tweet
It's not often you see a company admitting they were wrong, let alone that company being Activision. However, this is precisely the case as Activision admits they royally screwed up concerning the launch of Call of Duty ELITE.
CEO Eric Hirshberg admitted at D.I.C.E. 2012 that prior to the service's launch there were many internally who had their doubts.
The "right reasons" may or may not be limited to earning a ton of cash for the ELITE service and completely alienating at least one of their three player bases. For all of the complaints of ELITE from all gaming communities, it has over 7 million subscribers with 1.5 million people paying money for the service.
CEO Eric Hirshberg admitted at D.I.C.E. 2012 that prior to the service's launch there were many internally who had their doubts.
"I hesitate to talk about Elite, because even though we've had some early success with the numbers, it's far from time for us to be doing any victory laps on Elite," he said.
"We had some technological stumbles at launch and that frustrated some of our fans. We're still making that right. But if we only talk about the things that go as planned then we miss some of the most valuable dialogue that can come out of this," he added.
"We chose to tell people right out of the gate that while the vast majority of features would be free, there would be a premium membership. A lot people thought we should have waited and show people what they get for the premium membership before talking about its existence. But we knew this question about whether it would be free would immediately be asked. We'd be put on the spot. We chose to be transparent and tell people our intentions from the beginning. The words 'Call of Duty' plus the word 'subscription' equals 'unleash blogger hell'," he recalled.
Backlash was strong and inevitable, and for Hirshberg "that was the most painful summer of Google Alerts I've ever lived through."
"Both Elite and XP were both experiments in how willing people are to enter a relationship, to treat it more like a brand or a lifestyle. Like I said, we're a long way from doing victory laps but we're in it for the long haul. We made it for the right reasons and believe its' right for a players and if we get it right we can change the relationship, make the game better and more fun for players."
"We had some technological stumbles at launch and that frustrated some of our fans. We're still making that right. But if we only talk about the things that go as planned then we miss some of the most valuable dialogue that can come out of this," he added.
"We chose to tell people right out of the gate that while the vast majority of features would be free, there would be a premium membership. A lot people thought we should have waited and show people what they get for the premium membership before talking about its existence. But we knew this question about whether it would be free would immediately be asked. We'd be put on the spot. We chose to be transparent and tell people our intentions from the beginning. The words 'Call of Duty' plus the word 'subscription' equals 'unleash blogger hell'," he recalled.
Backlash was strong and inevitable, and for Hirshberg "that was the most painful summer of Google Alerts I've ever lived through."
"Both Elite and XP were both experiments in how willing people are to enter a relationship, to treat it more like a brand or a lifestyle. Like I said, we're a long way from doing victory laps but we're in it for the long haul. We made it for the right reasons and believe its' right for a players and if we get it right we can change the relationship, make the game better and more fun for players."
The "right reasons" may or may not be limited to earning a ton of cash for the ELITE service and completely alienating at least one of their three player bases. For all of the complaints of ELITE from all gaming communities, it has over 7 million subscribers with 1.5 million people paying money for the service.
Comment