Activision Has Call of Duty Plans for China and Korea

We already know that 2010 will see the launch of a new full length Call of Duty: Black Ops videogame, developed by Treyarch, on November 6 and lovers of the franchise will, before that date, be able to enjoy a new Map Pack for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the biggest selling title of last year. But it seems publisher Activision has more plans linked to the successful franchise, built around the idea of expanding the audience for the first person shooter series.

Bobby Kotick, the Chief Executive Officer of Activision, told investors after the first quarter results announcement, that “There's a soldier in all of us” and that his company is actively trying to enter growing gaming markets all over the world. He added, “The popular global fantasy of being a soldier is allowing us to enter new geographies, leveraging... expertise... creating content for audiences that to date have only been satisfied by Blizzard games. Soon we'll announce our plans for both China and Korea.”

Kotick also said that new content is planned for both Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops, the overall aim being to surprise players by offering them something they did not experience in the game until now.

The CEO adds that, until now, more than 17 million map packs have been sold for the entire series, which is more than other franchises manage to sell in their entire launch history.

The Chinese and Korean gaming markets are dominated by MMO titles, with World of Warcraft having a strong presence and a lot of games being supported through microtransactions. The multiplayer component of the various Call of Duty titles is very popular but it lacks the shared world of a true persistent online world. Activision has talked before about creating a Call of Duty MMO but nothing official has been announced about it.