People sure do love their MW2. Even if I had the extra cash I'm hard press to pay $5 per new map. I don't consider the old maps new. Maybe if they took a map from another older COD it'd feel sorta of maybe new.

I'm calling BS on my fellow gamers. Why would you pay for content like that when you could get so much more?

I'm sure Kottick is s***ing himself with glee over the fact that now most of our peers in the industry who have been around for a while are now going to look at this and see that gamers will pay anything as long as it's brand named because the fan boys are sheep.

This doesn't apply to everyone, but you get my picture.

..and to think bobby onced believed consoles were a passing fad...

@Robert
How does one square this with the fact that gamers were not willing to pay for the GTAIV content? GTAIV sold like gangbusters too, but it doesn't sound like they did numbers anywhere near even the first week numbers for MW2's map pack.

Also, I guess this makes up for MS banking on the GTAIV dlc, I bet they couldn't be happier with whatever cut they get from this dlc. Plus, at least 2.5 million people have used the XBOX marketplace to download some fairly expensive content. I bet a lot of those people can be lured back for other content.

@Bob---That is sad. To think somebody would pay that for Farmville. Rofl that made my day.

I agree with the kids statement. They really need to bring the game back to reality. Too many kids seem to think that you truly can bounce knives off concrete and kill people. Or that soldiers run around with dual-wielding shotguns :/

@Jonathan---Hmmm... I would square this to GTA in that GTA is seen as more of a single player experience, with multiplayer, though good, not as popular as MW2, which truly focused more on multiplayer than on the single player experience.

It really only sold because it's Modern Warfare 2. I know gamers that simply downloaded it without regards to the price, or said that "It's too expensive, but I'll get it anyway".

I have to agree with MS making up some dough for it though. The first DLC for GTAIV did great, but "Ballad" didn't do nearly as well as expected.

I'm less concerned about what's going on now with MW2 than I am with what ATVI is doing going forward with the franchise (as they have done with all of their franchises). Instead of treating their IP as long-term investments, they pump them out as short-term gains and pray that they keep paying out over the long term.

There's a great big ol' brick wall that ATVI wants to so desperately smash into. It appears that they've learned nothing from EA's implosion.

I would love to be able to make maps, upload them, and get paid. I'd make some awesome maps.

I've never liked the idea of making for-free maps. I feel I'm giving charity to the developers.

@Tim Hopefully Starcraft will change map addons for the better with their marketplace, and the moneygrubbers of MW2 will be forced to follow suit.

Let's do a little math here. 10,000,000 x 15...that's...let's see...carry the one... holy crackers ! That's a lot of cheddar.

@Tim ya I like that idea as well.

Regarding the pricing for map packs, let's consider what you're actually paying for: entertainment.

You pay five dollars per map. Each map has a round time varying between 10 to 15 minutes, but I'll just round down to 10 for simplicity's sake. Now to do some math.

Let's say you expect the average game to bring you 40 hours (variable) of entertainment in its lifetime. At a 60 dollar price tag, that's $1.50 per hour of entertainment. To match that with a single map, at $5, you would need to play that map for 4.66 hours, or 260 minutes. To make 260 minutes with 10 minute rounds, you will need to play that map 26 times in its lifetime to be worth the price of purchase.

Seeing how popular the series is, and that the average COD multiplayer gamer has probably played hundreds (if thousands) of rounds, they'll easily make the price worth it.

The value proposition is not the issue here. Activision has blatantly said that most of the money that you spend on the download is going to cover marketing costs. The actual cost of producing these maps would be minimal. It's a damning statement of so called hardcore gamers that they would so willingly pay such an obviously overinflated price for this content.

In regards paid map downloads I'm all for that, IF the money is going to the developer. In this case the money is going to the marketer and that's just wrong.

@David: The math is a little off since this is 5 maps for $15. I don't play MW2 so I don't know or care what's "new" or "old", but whether you only use 1 of them or all 5, you're still paying for 5 maps.

But the point is still solid. Most people will get more entertainment time out of this than they would out of, say, God of War 3, which was full price and a number of people were finished with the next day.

@Ian: If you're only in favor of map packs supplementing developers instead of publishers, you're going to have a very hard time finding your downloadable content. The publisher/developer relationship is usually a publisher funding the cost of developing a product, the developer putting the publisher's money to use to make said product, and then the publisher releases the product using their own means. If the product sells well, like this map pack has, the publisher gets all the benefit. However, if a product tanks, the publisher takes the hit. Not the developer. The publisher doesn't hunt down the developer and demand their money back. That's how it works in the vast majority of publisher/developer relationships.

Same applies with movies. Same applies with comic books. You might think it's wrong, but that's the widely implemented business model across multiple entertainment mediums. This is the trade-off all developers must face when they integrate into a larger distribution company.

@Bob, indeed my math was a bit off, I thought it was 3 maps for 15, not 5. But when I rework the math, it actually takes my original estimate and gives it a 40% off discount, lol. So you would only need to play a map (number crunching, fixing previous mathematical errors) 18 times to have an entertainment value equating to a packaged 40-hour gameplay experience at full retail price.

It's worth noting that the physics of business became a fascination of mine very recently in life. I was a C to D- student in math, and couldn't push myself beyond pre-calculus, so I apologize if my numbers are off.