This goes along with my article from last week.  In that article, I discussed Modern Warfare 2′s apparent failure to keep the player base occupied and coming back for more as time goes on.  Well, Infinity Ward was concerned that such a thing was either going to happen or happening already, because they will soon be releasing a map pack.  Oh Joy!  Five, count ‘em now, FIVE new maps!  And what will it cost for this incredible new expansion of content?  Why only $15!

…. Wait, what?

Yes, indeed, Kotaku reports that this little snippet of wonderfulness for the gaming community that Activision so loves is going to cost you $3 per map.  That’s an absolutely absurd price, and the sad part?  There are a great many people who will buy it because the game is getting stale.  Who wouldn’t want to revamp their game only four months after its release because they’re already bored?  But we’re not even to the best part yet.

Wait, this part looks familiar...

A separate article on Kotaku indicates that two of these maps are remakes of COD4 levels.  Crash and Overgrown were, in my opinion, two of the better maps in COD4, but come on.  You’d also get 3 unknown quantities in this deal: an apartment complex (a la Bloc maybe?  Or something different this time), an industrial equipment park, and a junkyard (if this is arrayed at all like Wetwork, I can guarantee people will be calling for your heads, IW).  You’re calling this DLC the “Stimulus Package” but what do consumers get?  3 new maps and 2 old ones for almost 1/3 the price of a new game (1/4 if you play consoles and pay that extra $10 a pop).  Much like the real Stimulus Package, this promises much and will likely deliver little.  You may in fact experience little change at all in your overall game experience, especially since the only people likely to spend such an absurd amount of money on this are the hardcore jerkoffs.  Which means the people you’re going to be playing with on these maps are very likely to be massive assclowns.  Have fun with that.

Don't ever push a map like Wetwork on anyone ever again. I mean it.

So I’ll admit, not having seen the 3 new maps (and actually never having played the game), some of what I’ve said is probably unfair (not really, but I like to pretend I care about objectivity in what is essentially an editorial site with the odd news item tossed in).  But you won’t ever convince me or most of the people with half a brain that $15 is a justifiable price for such a limited expansion.  To be fair, Bad Company 2 also does some skeevy stuff with their maps.  I guess the Day 1 Map pack added 2 maps to the game.  I personally didn’t notice because they were included in the digital download, and they were made available to anyone with a retail copy code.  But it seems that if you buy a used copy of the game, you’ve got to pay a whopping $15 for just these two missing maps.  The blog post doesn’t indicate if the two new maps we’re supposed to get at the end of March are included in the purchases we made or if they will cost extra (I’m guessing included for original buyers and part of the extra $15 for used copy owners, but that’s speculation).  Either way, while shady in general, it’s still not as bad as the MW2 setup which forces all buyers to pony up the cash for the new content.

Activision is padding their bottom line, but also trying to revive a game that, a mere 4 months after release, seems to be at risk of dying out already.  EA is only doing better by comparison by screwing used buyers.  Overall, if this sort of trend continues, we’re not going to be micro-transactioned to death.  Instead we’re going to get charged top dollar for limited updates.  Boo.