Putting away our CoD Subscription snark for a moment, you may want to know that through Steam, a free to play, no strings attached weekend for Black Ops is available. Simply go to this page here, install CoD Black Ops, and play your heart out until Sunday, 1PM PDT. The multiplayer in Black Ops is entertaining for at least a weekend, so it’s not a bad idea if you want to check out the latest CoD.
While we’re chatting about CoD again, you can also sign up for free beta access subscription of CoD Elite here. The good news for diehard CoD fans is the Elite subscription doesn’t take away anything you are used to getting for free (like multiplayer), it only adds new services, eventually for a price. What I find interesting is that they took this long to tap into extra services for CoD, right around the time I’m hearing from many friends and gaming sources that people are starting to get tired of the recycled CoD formula year after year. Had they unveiled Elite even one year ago, it probably would be a larger success than it could be now, as CoD seems to be approaching the downward side of its popularity arc.
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I have been involved in both computers and video games since a very young age, cutting my teeth (literally) on an Apple IIe and an Intellivision. I've been writing about both for fun, off and on throughout the years, which eventually led me here -- still playing games and casually writing about them off an on.
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I don’t really agree that CoD is on the downward side of the arc…unfortunately. Don’t forget that BLOPS sold a lot more, and more quickly, than MW2 did – and MW2 equally outpaced CoD4. We might see MW3 fall significantly behind the record that BLOPS set, but I’m not holding my breath. The segment of the market that laps up every CoD title seems to be pretty large, and it might be better served by CoD than any other franchise…sigh.
True, you may be right. I’ve just noticed for the first time more than just a few people saying that they’re getting tired of CoD. Of course that doesn’t account for the tens of millions of people who are foaming at the mouth for every bit of CoD news. Maybe not on the downward side of the arc, but maybe just starting to see a few cracks in the armor? Or maybe it’s all a mirage and MW3 will top BLOPS and Activision will ride the CoD profit horse for years to come.