Activision, the world-renowned video game publisher is rewriting video game history and bets big on its latest project, its first ever online-only first person shooter video game. It's bigger than "Destiny" and even bigger than Blizzards "World of Warcraft" expansion. It's the online incarnation of "Call of Duty" dubbed "Call of Duty Online."
According to Activision, "Call of Duty Online" will be a free-to-play version of the popular "Call of Duty" franchise and it will only be available in the PC platform. Activision is already done with its private beta testing and has revealed that they have already released the game for a public open-beta testing phase. The biggest catch however is that it will only be available in China.
Many players and critics will be surprised with Activision's decision to release the game strictly in China, but what they don't know is that China is probably the biggest video game market right now, the Mecca for any video game publisher who wants to make it big outside of the North American and European market. Right now China has more than 368 million active video game players, that figure surpasses the entire population of the United States. The most surprising fact about all this is that after all those years in the business it is only until recently that Activision decided to release an exclusive title in China.
Raven Software, the developer of the "Call of Duty" franchise has worked hand in hand with Activision Shanghai in order to develop fresh and original content for the game; they have pieced together various materials from "Black Ops" and the "Modern Warfare" series in order to create a new kind of gameplay dynamics.
"Call of Duty Online" will be tapping with Tencent to host its local network. Tencent is a Shenzen based company and is currently the world's fourth biggest internet company behind Amazon, Google and eBay.
