As if there was any doubt there would be significant interest in Activision's plans for Call of Duty Elite, Activision social media manager Dan Amrich revealed two million users have signed up.

Call of Duty is company's recently revealed service-level addition to the franchise, which comes in both free and paid subscription forms. It's not been announced what features will cost money--or how much it will cost. The air of ambiguity is what's caused many vocal complaints.

"When the studio head at Beachhead said this would be a live beta," said Amrich, "he was not kidding--your participation really can make a difference in how Elite evolves. And don’t be discouraged by the big number, thinking you shouldn’t bother because they already have enough people--two million volunteers among 30 million Call of Duty players is a small amount. More would be even better."

The service does not make multiplayer pay-to-play, and introduces analytics such as heat maps.

Call of Duty Elite's premiering through Call of Duty: Black Ops, but will also be part of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3--and assumedly all Call of Duty games available in the future.

As if there was any doubt there would be significant interest in Activision's plans for Call of Duty Elite, Activision social media manager Dan Amrich revealed two million users have signed up.

Call of Duty is company's recently revealed service-level addition to the franchise, which comes in both free and paid subscription forms. It's not been announced what features will cost money--or how much it will cost. The air of ambiguity is what's caused many vocal complaints.

"When the studio head at Beachhead said this would be a live beta," said Amrich, "he was not kidding--your participation really can make a difference in how Elite evolves. And don’t be discouraged by the big number, thinking you shouldn’t bother because they already have enough people--two million volunteers among 30 million Call of Duty players is a small amount. More would be even better."

The service does not make multiplayer pay-to-play, and introduces analytics such as heat maps.

Call of Duty Elite's premiering through Call of Duty: Black Ops, but will also be part of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3--and assumedly all Call of Duty games available in the future.

No surprise.
 
Edit: First, finally.

I feel like this is going to be one of my last years for COD. It's a cycle of me buying it, liking it for a month, then seeing just how broken the fucking game is.  

Two many

More than 2.000.000 people? Really?

This thing is going to make more money than it deserves too.   
 
I am done with CoD, but there are millions of people out there that aren't yet.  While it will sell much less to the enthusiast crowd, this is a game that doesn't need them. 

Who are these people?! "I have no idea what this service is, but it says Call of Duty on it, so sign me up!"

Obligatory:

@JimmyJackJones said:

Who are these people?! "I have no idea what this service is, but it says Call of Duty on it, so sign me up!"

These represent the vast majority of people that buy games. They purchase 1 or 2 a year and play that. COD, maybe Madden, possibly a game for the kids. And that's it. Then they get their buddies and play only this. Then one buddy signs up so they all do. And they're happy, very happy.

And while COD guy is happy and enjoying his games and his friends, games enthusiasts come to enthusiast websites to wring their hands and get all upset that the masses keep buying COD.

In sum, COD guy is having fun, and enthusiasts are angry about that.

Small amount? Be happy with what you've got for gods sakes.

@Microshock said:

I feel like this is going to be one of my last years for COD. It's a cycle of me buying it, liking it for a month, then seeing just how broken the fucking game is.

yup. i feel exactly the same way. still...i signed up for the beta and already made a pre-order for mw3...sigh. i hate myself.

Signed up just to see how it compares with bungie.net and other 'services.' Of course I would never pay for stat tracking and access to map packs, but it'd be interesting to see how Activision can market this. (Well other than the audience is so huge that some people might buy it.)

Obligatory:

@JimmyJackJones said:

Who are these people?! "I have no idea what this service is, but it says Call of Duty on it, so sign me up!"

These represent the vast majority of people that buy games. They purchase 1 or 2 a year and play that. COD, maybe Madden, possibly a game for the kids. And that's it. Then they get their buddies and play only this. Then one buddy signs up so they all do. And they're happy, very happy.

And while COD guy is happy and enjoying his games and his friends, games enthusiasts come to enthusiast websites to wring their hands and get all upset that the masses keep buying COD.

In sum, COD guy is having fun, and enthusiasts are angry about that.

I signed up for the beta just because it's free. Once I see that they start charging, I'm out.

Obligatory:

Hello i like Call Of Duty... and I'm a horrible person.

I got the email, but I deleted it.

Stopped playing COD around the 4th one (the last one I found only somewhat enjoyable) and this is certainly NOT going to bring me back. How the hell they'll get people to actually sign up and pay for this kind of service is anyone's guess, but I guess most COD fanboy's will eat this up without even giving it a second glance. 

Would be funny if it was hacked.

Yea I am not signing up.

And I was one of them.

There are no words for how much I hate the current gaming community/industry...

COD is big?

2 million fucking morons.

wow thats alot of ppl ..does this beta come with a box of condoms cuz infinity ward is gunna fuck everybody

2mil is a lot of people, but how many are signing up because its free?
I doubt even half will actually pay for it.

@Crixaliz said:

@CosmicQueso said:

@JimmyJackJones said:

Who are these people?! "I have no idea what this service is, but it says Call of Duty on it, so sign me up!"

These represent the vast majority of people that buy games. They purchase 1 or 2 a year and play that. COD, maybe Madden, possibly a game for the kids. And that's it. Then they get their buddies and play only this. Then one buddy signs up so they all do. And they're happy, very happy.

And while COD guy is happy and enjoying his games and his friends, games enthusiasts come to enthusiast websites to wring their hands and get all upset that the masses keep buying COD.

In sum, COD guy is having fun, and enthusiasts are angry about that.

In my personal experience I'd say you are pretty accurate. Most of the people I work with play CoD only, otherwise they use their PS3's for playing blurays or netflix. They don't even know what E3 is or that Nintendo announced a new console!

As much as I love going to this site and keeping up with the industry, sometimes I wish I was them. They actually have fun, and don't spend half their time being mad about games like about half of the people on this site. I do my best to ignore those people.

I have a Wii.

@thabigred said:

Obligatory:

This should be posted in every article and thread on the forums.

@Microshock said:

I feel like this is going to be one of my last years for COD. It's a cycle of me buying it, liking it for a month, then seeing just how broken the fucking game is.

Yeah that's how it got me. CoD4 was a godsend, WaW was tolerable but disappointing and then MW2 had me hyped as hell until I realized how broken it was.

Just signed up for the beta. Lol at the haters.

How many?...

doesn't COD: Black Op's stats already have heat maps in your recent games?? pooprick klepek

@CosmicQueso said:

In sum, COD guy is having fun, and enthusiasts are angry about that.

LoL yeah pretty much this... I mostly play RPGs - But I occasionally enjoy a few matches of COD4 in the PC.

I still don't get why video game enthusiast get all angry about successful franchises.

In sum, COD guy is having fun, and enthusiasts are angry about that.

2mil is a lot of people, but how many are signing up because its free? I doubt even half will actually pay for it.

@Marokai: If you think that's "pretty serious," well... Anyways, multiplayer helps a games chances of selling at a level where the publisher can make a profit and developers tend to replicate effective mechanics when they find them. So, it's not surprising that COD's shooting mechanics, which are clearly good, are replicated.

When Gears was the hottest thing around, how many 3rd person cover based shooters popped up? Yet, over time, that went away. Hell, before that when MK first hit it big how many 2D fighting games were produced. Or to go even further back, how many Pac-Man and Space Invaders clones were published on the 2600?

And saying that "every other game" needs to feature CODs mechanics is also an oversimplification. Of the games at E3 there were only a couple big games that felt similar. Ghost Recon is a bit different, BF3 different. But hell, you're in a modern military game with a gun. How much different can it really be?

@Marokai: If you think that's "pretty serious," well... Anyways, multiplayer helps a games chances of selling at a level where the publisher can make a profit and developers tend to replicate effective mechanics when they find them. So, it's not surprising that COD's shooting mechanics, which are clearly good, are replicated.

When Gears was the hottest thing around, how many 3rd person cover based shooters popped up? Yet, over time, that went away. Hell, before that when MK first hit it big how many 2D fighting games were produced. Or to go even further back, how many Pac-Man and Space Invaders clones were published on the 2600?

And saying that "every other game" needs to feature CODs mechanics is also an oversimplification. Of the games at E3 there were only a couple big games that felt similar. Ghost Recon is a bit different, BF3 different. But hell, you're in a modern military game with a gun. How much different can it really be?

I feel like this is going to be one of my last years for COD. It's a cycle of me buying it, liking it for a month, then seeing just how broken the fucking game is.  

@NaDannMaGoGo said:

@Microshock said:

I feel like this is going to be one of my last years for COD. It's a cycle of me buying it, liking it for a month, then seeing just how broken the fucking game is.

What's wrong with a lot and why almost 90% of the whiners are hypocrites in a nutshell! "MImimi the game will most likely suck and be bad and I hate it and everything but of course I buy it because of uh and euh uh, it's of course the last one!"

What's wrong with that? I buy the game every year, enjoy it for a few months before the community drives me away from the game, it's more than your average retail game that lasts me a week or two, unless were talking me buying annual sports games of course.

It scares me knowing that people will really pay for this...for heat maps. I have to say EA picked a good year to release BF3, because Black ops is the last COD game for me.

Lot of people are just curious, they want to know whats involved.

I am not signing up to Elite, and pre-ordered MW3 to get the free poster.  However, Skyrim is the way to go!