Call of Duty heading to China – Video Games Update
Activision has announced that it will be partnering with the Chinese Internet Operator Tencent to bring its popular Call of Duty (COD) franchise to China. The game will be called Call of Duty Online and it will be free to play.
Graphically, Call of Duty Online doesn’t push any limits and looks like a rehash from the old Modern Warfare titles from the series. Activision has confirmed that the game will feature a single player campaign similar to Spec-ops mode in Modern Warfare 2
and the multiplayer will be recycling maps from previous Call of Duty games.
"The game is incredible, How you play, what you play, customization of weapons, the types of characters, the equipment you use, the game modes, and the maps are all unique to the Chinese market," said the CEO of Activision, Bobby Kotick.
He confirmed that the main income for Activision from Call of Duty Online will probably be from the game’s online store which is a pretty common practice in most free to play first person shooter models.
This is great news for Chinese gamers who were fans of the series but couldn’t play the games since there was no official release in China. Another reason for going free to play might be that the Chinese first person market is already saturated with lots
of free to play shooters and it would’ve been impossible for Activision to gain market share with a repackaged old game.
The move by Activision to launch COD in China and make it free to play does raise some questions amongst the fans in the West. Questions like if Activision will be making the multiplayer free for its previous Call of Duty games already released or will gamers
in the West get Call of Duty online if it’s a success in China?
The move to go free to play with Call of Duty contradicts Activision’s current strategy in the West for charging a monthly subscription for a premium COD service known as Call of Duty: Elite. Thus, the possibility of a Western release in the future is pretty
slim. Members of COD: Elite are entitled to special benefits such as early access to downloadable content, double XP while levelling up and advance statistics about the players’ game performance.
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