Former Activision executive to ‘dethrone’ Call of Duty

A new studio, U4iA Games, has been formed by ex-senior vice president and head of publishing at Activision Dusty Welch. His first goal? To usurp Call of Duty’s genre-leading position.

U4iA’s first game will be a free-to-play browser FPS designed to attract the eSports community.

“I created Call of Duty to dethrone the established leaders back in the early 2000s, and you bet my goal at U4iA is to repeat that success again,” Welch postured to GamesIndustry.biz.

“Providing a AAA, first person shooter experience in a browser is really what the end game is for us. And I think that’s going to help lead the new dynamic and a transition of gamers into the social.”

Welch looked to games like League of Legends and Defence of the Ancients as an indicator of the potential popularity of the model – and added that the potential market for a FPS ‘eclipses’ the two games.

“I think that yeah, U4iA can match or exceed the user base that [League of Legends developer] Riot is experiencing today.”

Here’s some more of his opinions about the free-to-play space: “Much bigger genre, sticky proposition, e-sport competitive first person shooters are the hallmark of why so many gamers are playing on Xboxes and PlayStation 3s today, and we’re going to provide a whole unique way to experience that in a AAA free-to-play package.”

Welch previous work at Activision included stewarding the Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises. He probably has a lovely house and a nice car, then.

U4iA will have their work cut out for them, however: Call of Duty is still enjoying its reign at the top, having recently announced that one million people had signed up to its £34.99 per year Call of Duty: Elite service.