



Is the $50/year subscription worth it over the free version of Elite available to all Call of Duty owners? Read on and decide for yourself.



At long last, Activision has laid all its cards on the table. Here's what a paid subscription to Call of Duty Elite gets you: A whole year of Modern Warfare 3 DLC. Activision says the first year will have over 20 pieces of content, from map packs to new modes, that would cost over $60 purchased a la carte.

Daily and weekly competitions and events with both physical and digital prizes

Eight times the video sharing capacity (I'm assuming this means storage)

Leveling up your clan, though you can start and join one as a free player

Access to strategy and tips for maps, guns, and modes produced by expert CoD players, which will definitely not be ripped and rehosted the day they go up

Elite TV: Web video episodes featuring the likes of Ridley and Tony Scott (producing a show pitting real-life rivals against each other in CoD) and Will Arnett and Jason Bateman (producing a show where celebrities talk smack over user-submitted videos)

The rest of Elite is free for everyone: crazy-deep stat tracking, heat maps for kills and deaths on each level, video sharing, and more.



I'm wary of any and all "recurring revenue streams" that publishers attach to their games, but Elite seems to be a genuine value for hardcore Call of Duty players. Then again, the majority of that value looks to me to be in the free year of DLC, given Activision's obscene map pack prices. The rest of the paid experience looks like fluff, as much as I enjoy Will Arnett and Jason Bateman. To me, the meat of Elite is in the stat tracking and social aspects, which are available to everyone.



The one poison pill here could be the clan leveling system. If free players are gimped in any way -- and I'm not talking missing the odd double XP weekend here and there, like Activision has already talked about offering clans through paid Elite members -- free players could end up as second-class citizens. That would be regrettable, to say the least.



What's your take? Gonna buy Elite? Disagree with my generally positive take? Just here to hate on Call of Duty? The comment section awaits you below!