“There’s been a lot of speculation and we’ll continue to say this: We do not and will not charge for multiplayer.” – Jamie Berger, VP of Digital at Activision

Activision is not going to charge for multiplayer. In fact, Call of Duty Elite is free, but will offer a premium membership. Frankly, that’s not even part of the bigger problem. In order to understand, let’s focus on what Beachhead, the studio with the task of creating Call of Duty Elite, is trying to accomplish.

“Our goal is simple: to enrich the multiplayer experience,”  Chako Sonny, Beachhead studio head, explained a few weeks ago. A fantastic goal, which many studios should try to reach. Of course not every company has a game which more than 30 million people played last year.

Call of Duty Elite is a web service that will create one profile for the player across all Call of Duty games starting with Black Ops. It’ll feature 4 categories for the player to do: Career, Connect, Compete and Improve.

Let’s focus on what these categories accomplish when combined. Connect is the biggest innovation, since it allows you to create groups. Most of the time I ignore multiplayer in shooters just to ignore those horrible… horrible people on the internet. I’m also not a fan of their online ecosystem which punishes those who haven’t leveled up fervently in order to get the best perks and gear.  Now imagine being able to set up a group for say your school, city, even your favorite video game website and playing with people who have the same interests as you.  You can easily filter out the scum of humanity while at the same time be able to establish a real connection with new players. This creates a much better gaming and social experience. Also, it is much easier to strive to be on the top of a group rather than the best in the world. Instead of ignoring the leaderboards knowing you’re somewhere down in the 8 digits, you actually are interested to know where you place among your peers. You can even create a clan with your favorite players.

Activision has promised when Modern Warfare 3 launches, you’ll be able to have group versus group and clan versus clan competitions in the Compete category. You can win items such as “Trophies” for your Elite profile or even an actual Jeep.

So now you’re part of a small group. You play competitively with them and feel that you don’t want to let them down. How can you get better? Where do you turn to? The Improve category of course! This category uses all the data from the Career category to explain why you’re dying all the time. It also will explain every detail on all the weapons in the game. Here you can strive to be the best on your team.

You are the now the ultimate Call of Duty player. You are an elite.

But what part did we have to pay for? While Activision has not mentioned what features in Elite will be charged, the folks there have said, ”A number of the great features that you’ve seen first-hand today are going to be made available free including things like Career and Groups, to all players, enhancing the out-of-the-box experience for everyone.”

We can safely confirm that Career and the Groups feature(within Connect) are free. That’s all you need. Groups creates the social structure while Career enables you to view your stats. If Activision can hold on to even 30% of the 30 million players who played Black Ops last year, then it already has  enough players to rival Blizzard’s 12 million subscription based World of Warcraft players. What is one of the main reason WoW players have a tough time switching to other MMOs? All there friends are playing WoW. Elite offers a stronger social structure for shooters that will create communities that span across all Call of Duty games moving forward. With this type of social innovation, games that feature graphical innovation or better gameplay mechanics, Battlefield 3 comes to mind, won’t be enough.

Assuming the entire Compete and Improve section are part of the subscription, 20 million map packs were downloaded at $14.99 by 2010. I’m sure Activision can always rely on these users to pay for the premium.

The release of MW3 marks the 5th Call of Duty game since Infinity Ward’s Modern Warefare started taking down FPS giant, Halo, which at the time was on it’s 3rd installment. Who can take Call of Duty down now? It certainly will be much harder than Halo, as Call of Duty is on multiple consoles, has a larger install base, and deals with more mature scenarios. I want to hope Battlefield can make a dent, but how much can better graphics and gameplay get? It may get you or me, but what about the majority of the audience who plays Call of Duty and realizes it has a great social feature? With a leveling and social system, Call of Duty does start to resemble World of Warcraft. I can only hope that the future of first person shooters don’t become feeble attempts at creating the “Call of Duty Killer.”

Sadly, it’s hard to imagine that not already happening.