Call of Duty developer says no to multiplayer surcharge

September 10th, 2010

Some developers, including EA and Ubisoft, have begun charging $10 per game to unlock online multiplayer. Buy the game new, and the single-use unlock code is slipped under the shrink wrap. Buy the game used, and you'll have to fork over extra cash to "activate" multiplayer.

Thankfully for PC gamers, such nickle and diming is limited to retail console sales at the moment. But it's nice to know at least one big developer wants nothing of it moving forward.

"You won't see that for Black Ops," said Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia, in an interview with MCV (via 1UP). "The multiplayer comes with the game you buy—you don't have to do anything else for that."

As Lamia sees it, the best way to engender loyal fans is to make online multiplayer so good, that everyone will want to keep it forever, as opposed to reselling it. "I want to give consumers really great reasons to keep their games, rather than trade them in," he said, adding that good multiplayer has "tremendous staying power" without having to charge extra for it.

Call of Duty: Black Ops arrives Nov. 9 on PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and DS.

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