As Dan noted last week, the reveal of Call of Duty Elite caused gamers to be confused and furious, as we so often are when confronted with a smidgen of information that pointed towards an incoming assault on our collective wallets.

To help stem the tide, Activision have released a Call of Duty Elite FAQ which they hope will clear things up. There's a lot in there, but here are the two bits that stood out to me - first, why you should care about it:

How will Elite compare to free offerings that currently exist?

We believe that the free elements of Elite alone will be better than any free service currently on the market today. Elite ups the ante of any free service by offering a range of innovations on well-established multiplayer features, such as leaderboards, heat maps, and rich player data. Additionally, other Elite features are completely new to the industry. For example, with Elite’s new Groups featured integrated with Modern Warfare 3, you will be able to join custom groups based on your likes, interests, or affiliations, and then have those groups follow you directly into the game. Soon you’ll be playing in a social group, making new friends (and rivals!) who play Call of Duty and share your interests, home town, or play style.

... and secondly, how much:

Why announce now if you can’t show us all the Modern Warfare 3 launch features and pricing?

Elite was designed from the ground up to integrate with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Therefore, many of the services which will be a part of the premium membership will not be able to be demonstrated fully until the launch of Modern Warfare 3. The reason we launched the service ahead of that time was to invite people to participate in a public beta of the service using Black Ops, which will help to test the service at scale and fine tune it before its official release this November. The premium membership to Elite also will include many industry firsts, and will represent the ultimate Call of Duty experience.

It's an interesting model and it certainly will be fun to see how it evolves; I'm sure the price point will be a key factor for many people - simply, will the features on offer be worth paying extra money for?