Treyarch: Players realise the value in our DLC packs
James Pickard April 15, 2011 - 2:39 pm
Call of Duty: Black Ops’ second map pack, Escalation, is due on Xbox Live from May 3rd at a price we can safely assume will be 1200 Microsoft points. It does leave a rather significant dent in your wallet, especially when you consider that you could get the excellent Beyond Good and Evil HD for two-thirds of the price.
Nevertheless, Treyarch Community Manager, Josh Olin, believes players are willing to pay the high price for Call of Duty map packs because they realise they’re getting good value for their money. In an interview with OXM about the upcoming DLC, he said the following:
“I think people see there’s a lot of value in the map pack. All four of our MP maps are brand new – they’re not rehashes from single-player, they’re not old maps that people have seen before. They also get new gameplay mechanics with ziplines and destructible bridges and auto turrets.”
When quizzed on how to generate interest in future map packs, Olin thinks that it’s vital Treyarch continue ‘ratcheting the bar up’ and consequently ‘ratchet the levels up themselves’ by making them more interactive.
“One thing a lot of fans loved about Black Ops multiplayer was the interactivity on our multiplayer maps. They loved that on Radiation the base doors could open and close, and they could launch a rocket out of them. They said they wanted more, so that’s why you see things like the ziplines and the bridge in Discovery.”
Personally, I still don’t see a lot of value in these maps packs. But then again, I grew up playing Valve’s online FPSs so most likely have this deep-seated sense of entitlement.
