Mobile Computing News

Photo: Infinity Ward

Infamous Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has taken the time to come off his money pile to speak to journalists and commoners amongst us about, oh, the business of making money, of course. What else? In short, Kotick again hinted at the possibility of a Call of Duty MMO as well as discussing why he wants some of that Microsoft money.

60 per cent just for COD

Bobby Kotick told the Financial Times that Activision Blizzard ‘heard that 60 per cent of [Microsoft's] subscribers are principally on Live because of Call of Duty’. Whether that figure is accurate is unclear, but it sure is great validation for the game. What is not great is that Activision sees none of that money. Kotick continues, saying, ‘We don’t really participate financially in that income stream,’ before espousing how much more value the company would add if the lucrative network did not belong to Microsoft exclusively.

And how lucrative a network it is, considering Microsoft charges £30.00 plus for an annual subscription to the service. Multiply that by a few million paying subscribers and you get a good understanding as to why the Activision Blizzard head honcho is not altogether happy about being cut out.

Call of Duty MMO

Photo: Blizzard

In addressing this issue, many immediately recalled an interview with Bobby Kotick where he claimed fans of the franchise were clamouring for a Call of Duty MMO, saying if he could, he would absolutely see it happen. And why not? World of Warcraft, which happens to be part of Activision Blizzard and is the most successful MMO of all time, has 11 million subscribers who pay $20 every month to play the game. Doing the maths on that indicates why Kotick would want to see it happen with COD, though at this stage the company will continue to retail the game as a packaged goods product with downloadable content for additional revenue streams.

License to print money

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is on store shelves right now, and is one of the best selling video games of all time already, having been released in November 2009. The title continues to do well, even though there was some unrest at developer Infinity Ward recently. The incoming Call of Duty: Black Ops by another Activision Studio, Treyarch, is widely expected to outsell everything else this year when it releases on 9 November 2010, for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Would you subscribe to a Call of Duty MMO and how would you expect it to work, exactly?