So Modern Warfare 3 made over a billion dollars last year and whilst Activision is tight lipped on how much has been made from their Elite service so far. The first two maps for MW3 have been released and the next few already teased but many CoD players have discovered a recent change in the DLC policy. This would have people shelling out more money for their maps but other profiles on the system will be unable to get their content without a second or separate Elite membership.

On the Call of Duty forums, there were 8 pages worth on a single thread of upset players who had their friends and family accounts discontinued or altered with no new maps because they didn't have a secondary account. What's even worse is that the new policy doesn't really work with the terms of services you encounter when you first download the content, which rather plainly states on the loading screen that: "You can use this item on the first Xbox 360 console you downloaded it to. Access to this item will also be granted to all users on this first console."

What would usually happen is that DLC on the 360 would be user agnostic and while your purchase (or any redownloads of purchased items) would be tied to your account, any XBLA games or in-game DLC would be on your HD and playable by any account on the 360, which you own. Microsoft's own digital ownership scheme, mimics real life ownership, so as long as someone has access to the content, you can let someone borrow it from you and play it on their own account.

However, with the CoD Elite service, you cannot do so and require your own user account to access the maps and DLC. For example, a single copy of the game could set you back several $50 a year per account to play on.  Whilst Activision is yet to make a comment on it, I'm sure the more "financially savvy" (See: Greedy) companies will probably adopt this system to make sure each user or member of a console will fork out a piece of dough to make sure they make up for the "lost millions" from pirates.

Not sure how many Call of Duty fans there are on this site, but I'm sure that more often than not there are criticism's spread far and wide about their handling of their Elite service as well as their user base. I do like Call of Duty in theory and in some aspects. I think if the Black Ops zombie game was just a downloadable title I would buy that and every bit of DLC in existence, but alas we are burdened by terrible storylines, unrelatable characters and some insane visuals. They're not terrible games but their effect on the industry (Re: BF3, Medal of Honor, etc.) can bar none, see them as a culprit.

Via [N4G]

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