Activision Admits: Beta Testing Would Have Helped
Call of Duty Elite is Activision's subscription service, designed to work with COD: Modern Warfare 3. When it first launched, millions of players were unable to use the service, having login problems. On November 8th, Beachhead Studio Head Chacko Sonny released a statement saying that "Registration requests for our new live service Call of Duty Elite are exceeding even our most optimistic expectations, which is creating a bottleneck and some players have not been able to register."
COD: Elite is designed to go beyond the Playstation Network and Xbox Live social experiences, making interaction with the Call of Duty "lifestyle" available on tablets, computers, smartphones, and more. Players can create and join groups based on similar interests, as well as create or join clans. Clans have access to an amazing management section with clan roster, schedules, and a private feed. They can compete against other clans, and all stats are recorded by Elite, tracking all kinds of progress.
At the DICE Summit this weekend, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg admitted that Call of Duty Elite did not undergo beta testing. As the service was coded for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, it was not possible to test on such a scale prior to the launch of the game. Hirshberg said this weekend, "I hesitate to talk about COD: Elite, because even though we've had some early success with the numbers, it's far from time for us to be doing any victory laps on Call of Duty Elite,". The numbers: COD: MW3 is the highest selling game of 2011, and Activision's posted 2011 profits are $1 billion. 1.5 million paying customers are using Elite out of 7 million total subscribers. Certainly, the rough start to Elite is turning right around, and efforts continue to work out all the bugs in the system.
Regarding the flawed launch due to the lack of proper beta testing, Hirshberg said "None of the features were going to be demonstrable in the beta because they were all tied into the code of Modern Warfare 3 and the beta was going to be Black Ops multiplayer.
"With the launching of Call of Duty Elite we had a marketing Sophie's Choice. Do we do the beta, which is the right thing to do from a development standpoint, or do we make the best possible first impression, which was probably the right thing to do from the marketing standpoint?" Aside from the rocky start, it is apparent that Activision and Beachhead are dedicated to perfecting the Call of Duty Elite service for the players.
"We had some technological stumbles at launch and that frustrated some of our fans. We're still making that right." said Hirshberg.
Call of Duty Elite is Activision's subscription service, designed to work with COD: Modern Warfare 3. When it first launched, millions of players were unable to use the service, having login problems. On November 8th, Beachhead Studio Head Chacko Sonny released a statement saying that "Registration requests for our new live service Call of Duty Elite are exceeding even our most optimistic expectations, which is creating a bottleneck and some players have not been able to register."
COD: Elite is designed to go beyond the Playstation Network and Xbox Live social experiences, making interaction with the Call of Duty "lifestyle" available on tablets, computers, smartphones, and more. Players can create and join groups based on similar interests, as well as create or join clans. Clans have access to an amazing management section with clan roster, schedules, and a private feed. They can compete against other clans, and all stats are recorded by Elite, tracking all kinds of progress.
At the DICE Summit this weekend, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg admitted that Call of Duty Elite did not undergo beta testing. As the service was coded for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, it was not possible to test on such a scale prior to the launch of the game. Hirshberg said this weekend, "I hesitate to talk about COD: Elite, because even though we've had some early success with the numbers, it's far from time for us to be doing any victory laps on Call of Duty Elite,". The numbers: COD: MW3 is the highest selling game of 2011, and Activision's posted 2011 profits are $1 billion. 1.5 million paying customers are using Elite out of 7 million total subscribers. Certainly, the rough start to Elite is turning right around, and efforts continue to work out all the bugs in the system.
Regarding the flawed launch due to the lack of proper beta testing, Hirshberg said "None of the features were going to be demonstrable in the beta because they were all tied into the code of Modern Warfare 3 and the beta was going to be Black Ops multiplayer.
"With the launching of Call of Duty Elite we had a marketing Sophie's Choice. Do we do the beta, which is the right thing to do from a development standpoint, or do we make the best possible first impression, which was probably the right thing to do from the marketing standpoint?" Aside from the rocky start, it is apparent that Activision and Beachhead are dedicated to perfecting the Call of Duty Elite service for the players.
"We had some technological stumbles at launch and that frustrated some of our fans. We're still making that right." said Hirshberg.
by Aaron Semler, Senior Editor VETERANS-GAMING
[Submitted by SemlerPDX =VG=]
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