The Short Pier: Call of Duty Elite (Elite Harder)

Abandoning the paid subscription model of Elite Ver. 1.0, Elite 2.0 is free to COD: Black Ops 2 players with MW3 player’s subscriptions extended into 2013 at no charge, but also with no carry over of data or persistence. Everyone starts fresh in Elite 2.0 with the intent to clearly draw players away from last year’s release.


Other than not exploding on arrival as the service did at launch last (and leaving the team to battle fires for months) Ver. 2.0 is iteration on the service with a vital exception: No DLC included.

Number-crunchers in the bowels of Activision seem to have realized the only value proposition in Elite, i.e. what consumers are willing to pay for, is map packs, and they have once again reverted to an a la carte model with a twist. Like so many other games, a “season’s pass” can be purchase at a slight discount. The 360 exclusive release window is still in place though, so 360 players will have access to maps in advance of other platforms. However, Elite subscribers will not get the head start at the content they had last year and once again all map buyers are created equal.

With early reports (or lack thereof) of Blops 2 underperforming overall MW3 which overall underperformed Blops, the bloom may finally be off the COD rose. If that is the case, Elite may vanish as a service altogether by next year, leaving only the opportunity to make all DLC subscription based, rather than a la carte, as the COD franchise sinks into over-exploited diminishing returns.