Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has made it official that Call of Duty Online is in development and expected to begin beta trials later this year in China.
He made the announcement with Chinese Internet services provider Tencent Holdings Limited, which has a multi-year agreement to operate the free-to-play game there.
Call of Duty Online is an original multiplayer game, developed especially for the Chinese market. "We believe Call of Duty Online will attract tens of millions of loyal fans in China," said Tencent president Martin Lau in a statement, "and our game platform and operational expertise to run massive multi-player online games can provide strong support to deliver the immersive and highly interactive game experience to game players in China."
Kotick talked with Game Hunters about the deal before heading back from Shanghai to the U.S.
You've hinted at plans for a 'Call of Duty' game in China. What has officially happened now? Kotick: We announced that we had been in development on the game for two years. We showed the game and we announced that we likely were going to go into beta sometime later this year.
What will 'Call of Duty Online' be like? It's a thin client and it's online only. It's a first person action game. It's a sort of free to play equivalent with microtransactions. The thing that is incredible about it is our original concern with this market was to make sure that we could deliver 60 frames per second and we could do it at the fidelity that people expect of a really high quality Call of Duty game. And that is what we delivered. When you see it, I think you will be surprised.
We really haven't said anything about the story. On the game experience itself, this is a market where the audience is largely in Internet cafés. A lot of the game design is oriented towards that type of play experience. I will tell you one thing. It is an original story, but it unfolds through a series of Spec Ops missions. That is something we haven't quite done before where the story gets unfolded in that way.
What type of microtransactions will the game have? The game's for free, but you have an online game store in-game for enhanced weapons, gear and perks. Things like that.
Others quoted you as saying that the production costs of this game rival that of a 'Call of Duty' standalone retail release in the U.S. Is that right? I don't think I said anything about what the development costs were. I don't know how to compare it to other products being developed in the China market, but it was a very expensive development investment.
And what studio or studios are producing the game? We set up a studio in Shanghai to make the game. They are using resources from the other Call of Duty studios in the U.S. but we specifically set up a studio here. We have a pretty good size head count. The thing I actually will say while we staffed it with a few people from Activision in Santa Monica, most of the people are from here and the quality of the talent is exceptional. The programming talent, the design talent, the engineering talent here in Shanghai is just first-rate exceptional group of people.
What has it been like developing a game for the Chinese market?
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Obviously, Activision Blizzard has a lot of experience here with World of Warcraft and StarCraft, so we have been in this market more successfully than any western publisher. ... World of Warcraft was customized for this market. There was a whole host of development that was done here and in Irvine specifically for this market. NetEase is our publishing partner here and they launched World of Warcraft and StarCraft here in China but we operate the game.
So, Activision Publishing has gotten the advantage of Blizzard's investment and resources, energy and commitment and recognition of how important it is to create local experiences. This game was developed in China for the Chinese audiences and for Chinese gamers and it is not something you will find, the way it is currently developed, in any other market.
And what part does Tencent play? They are our partner. They have enormous reach, whether it is in instant messaging or their microblogging service or email. They have close to 750 million registered accounts and they are the leader right now in this game category. Their games are some of the most successful in this category.
They have a lot of experience that they have already brought to bear in the product development process and the marketing. We've just had a great success here in China with World of Warcraft and StarCraft and I think this is just a continuation of having learned so much about how as a western publisher you operate successfully in China. We have spent a lot of time thinking about that and putting it into practice. I think what you will see here is hopefully another good result.
So there is an approval process before the game can be published? There is a conventional approval process and you cannot publish a game here until you go through the approval process and you are successfully approved and there are no assurances that that will take place.
