Subscription Free Rumors Denied

Infinity Ward and Activision dismiss the rumor claiming that MW2 and other CoD titles will force gamers to pay in order to play MP.

A subscription free for Call of Duty has been a big talking point and rumor that has been circulating round the Internet for awhile now. The rumor started over a year ago before Modern Warfare 2 was released and has since heated up with Activision's CEO supporting the idea and a analyst predicting that it will and needs to happen.

As many of you know, yesterday a video » was released claiming of a new subscription service that would hit Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which outraged many COD fans and sparked some to question the motives of Activision.

The video shows a screen on Xbox LIVE titled as "Modern Warfare 2 Membership" with the message "No memberships are available at this time. Please try again later." This tells us that they could have been planning to bring them membership options soon. The menu also allowed users to purchase Microsoft Points or to enter a redeem code.

For months now, rumors had been floating around the web speculating that Activision would construct a Pay-To-Play system for its successful franchises (i.e. Call of Duty) that would force anybody who wanted to play Multiplayer to have to purchase an online subscription.

At one point, Activision's CEO (Bobby Kotick) stated that a Pay-To-Play system would have been a possibility, even exclaiming that he'd welcome the system. Yet today, to the delight of many, Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling stated on his blog »:

The above video was posted online, and an onslaught of questions as a result was sent in to me.

To be clear: There is not, and will never be, additional fees required to subscribe and play Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer.

The video above seems to show a user on what appears to be the Xbox Live Gold Membership renewal page via the Marketplace in the guide, but while in-game in Modern Warfare 2 (which is in error). It does not however, prove a pay-to-play subscription model is in the works for Modern Warfare 2, because no such plan exists for this or any other Call of Duty (including the upcoming Black Ops).

That said, feel free to cease freaking out.

With Black Ops being the next Call of Duty title and with only a few months until it is released, people began worrying that Black Ops would be the start of these supposed subscription plans. But soon thereafter via his Twitter page » Josh Olin stated the words many Black Ops hopefuls have been praying for:

No, you will not have to 'Pay to Play' #CODBlackOps Multiplayer either. Rumor > Squashed.

Activision have also commented on the rumors, insisting that they have no plans to charge gamers to play Call of Duty Multiplayer.

So there you have it, folks! It's time to chill out, relax and rejoice as multiplayer in both Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops will stay free of any subscription service or Pay-To-Play costs. Here's hoping that this will still be the case for any other future Call of Duty title.

A big thanks goes out to TangoDown for providing this information!

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