PC Gamer has confirmed the worst fears of Call of Duty fans and non-fans alike: the game is basically just glorified DLC. It is now confirmed that you must indeed launch Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 through Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The game has its own menus and such, but it must be launched through the older game. Reportedly, this newest Call of Duty is just a 3-4 hour long campaign (yikes!) too since the multiplayer elements are (and have been for a while now) their own separate element. The real kicker though? Activision is still charging the full price of $70 for this thing.

There’s so much tat I could dig into here that it’s unreal. First, we’ve got the confusing reuse of the “Modern Warfare 3” title, but that’s nothing new. Activision has been recycling “Modern Warfare” and “Black Ops” for several years now. Next, we’ve go the fact that this new Modern Warfare 3 is still likely to be one of the year’s top-sellers despite its bare-bones offerings and $70 price tag. I mean, why wouldn’t Activision do this if fans are just going to mindlessly throw their money at it no matter what? (Just like with all te sports games. Fans raise a big stink every year, yet all but throw their money at EA and 2K anyway) I’ll stay focused on the DLC aspect though.

With this, I fear that we’re seeing the beginning of a new, nasty business practice in gaming. What Activision has done here is take the old DLC model and applied it to a (supposedly) full sequel. Right now, if you want to play Modern Warfare 3, you must either purchase or already own Modern Warfare 2. You cannot just buy the “new” game and enjoy it as its own thing. It’s a very blatant attempt on the part of Activision to use a “sequel” in order to pump sales of the previous game.

If it succeeds, which it almost certainly will, then be prepared to see similar occurences in many to most of the major serialized franchises moving forward. Further, don’t be surprised if future IP are built specifically on this model, charging full-price for a small smattering of content and no ability to buy “sequels” separately as we always have. Heck, maybe this’ll be the end of such series as we know them; they’ll be transformed into platforms you gotta buy into (and keep buying into) each and every year. Seriously, if you’ve been looking for a good reason to quit and finally break your Call of Duty or Madden habit, this is it!

As for those of us who aren’t enthralled to an annualized, blockbuster series (and want to keep it that way), this is going to mean even fewer AAA games to look forward to in the future. I mean yeah, it’s all been trending this way for a while now, but it’s still sad to see. I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen to games once all of us older gamers exit the market and only those who’ve grown up with this kind of garbage are left? What’s going to happen when game makers no longer even have to pretend to try, and all the developers who actually care are forced out in favor of those who can just churn out product? Whatever it is, I don’t think it’ll be good.

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What’s your take on all this? Think things’ll be okay?

Image from the Modern Warfare 3 Battle.net page