This year’s Call of Duty to ‘set a new standard’

Activision will take the experience of playing Call of Duty to an “entirely new level” with the upcoming title in the franchise, the publisher said during last night’s earnings call.

While the publishing giant didn’t offer any specifics on what is coming this year, execs did their best to hype what is assumed will be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

“By any measure, Call of Duty is one of the biggest entertainment franchises in the world and we expect this year’s game will set a new standard for this incredible franchise,” said Activision publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg. “The creative excellence and sheer scale of the game we are making and the unprecedented online universe that will accompany it will reset the bar for this genre, giving players a new level of immersion, connectivity, community and of course epic action. The game today has exceeded every internal milestone and we look forward to sharing this with you soon.”

Hirshberg then discussed how a project from internal studio Beachhead will change the way players experience Call of Duty.

“We’re investing heavily back into our community to the take experience of playing Call of Duty to an entirely new level, creating even more opportunities for long-term growth in the process,” said Hirshberg.

“On our last call, I told you we had formed a wholly-owned development studio called Beachhead to lead the creation of an all-new connected digital universe for the Call of Duty franchise. This platform will include a suite of services and content plan that will unite and ignite the community like never before,” Hirshberg added. “The platform will support in-game integration and bring online experiences and console play together for the first time. It’s been in development for almost 2 years and we’re very excited about this increase in value and excitement that we can bring to our community through this platform. We look forward to sharing more specifics on this exciting new endeavour in the coming weeks.”

In a following Q&A session, Activision boss Bobby Kotick confirmed that the Beachhead development will form part of this year’s offering.

“The Beachhead initiatives will be part of that this fall,” said Kotick. “It’ll be an integral part to the innovation signature nature of the Call of Duty game that we’re releasing this year.”

Kotick also moved to reassure investors and interested gamers that the new experience won’t result in players being charged to play Call of Duty.

“I just wanted to backup on the earlier question make sure that I underscore that while we are attempting to deliver new incremental experiences that have yet heretofore been unseen by our players, we are not attempting to monetise or take any experience away that currently comes as part of the value proposition of buying the game.

“I think, very importantly, our community of Call of Duty players is one that we celebrate and you will see a lot of new services and capabilities that will be provided free of charge to all of our customers.”

That’s not to say Activision won’t be monetising other elements of the experience.

“Our goal has been to create an experience that was amplifying enough and energising enough and igniting enough to that community to be able to be monetised,” confirmed Hirshberg.

Expect lots more info on the next Call of Duty in the coming weeks.

Via Seeking Alpha