"The average Call of Duty player has spent nearly five full 24-hour days of their lives online since purchasing the game," said Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith at the company's Analyst Day. An impressive feat, but one that leads to, as Griffith pointed out, "opportunities to monetize online gameplay." Time is money, as they say.

Edge Online reports the Call of Duty publisher will place higher priority on downloadable content for the upcoming Treyarch-developed installment, World at War, promising three times as much content and an ominously titled "premium" offering called "Day One Advantage." According to Alt + F4, this "advantage" manifests in online experience points being earned faster by paying players. If the game follows Call of Duty 4's online model and doles out better equipment at higher experience levels, the DLC will essentially give less thrifty gamers a headstart in the game's early days.

We've contacted Activision (and Michael Phelps) to confirm this information. Not that we're worried, since Griffith assured everybody that World at War would be "Treyarch's highest-quality game ever." Phew.

[Update: Treyarch Community Manager JD took to the webs to clarify rampant rumors regarding this "Day One Advantage" – it's not a way to earn experience quicker; it's not a DLC pack available on "day one" ("we are putting absolutely all of the content we can onto the disc"); and it's not a free backrub from the developers at Treyarch. Instead, it's "immediate access to a high-level rifle (for pre-orders) or LMG (for collector's edition) that other players will have to unlock via ranking up in multiplayer."]

Source -- Edge Online
Source -- Alt + F4