Modern Warfare 3 moves Call of Duty into year-round territory

With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Activision made a significant push into bringing what was a yearly video game release for shooter fans, to a “year-round activity” and service that the publisher provides. The introduction of Call of Duty: Elite and the monthly content arrivals waiting for fans that subscribe to the premium service was a big part of this transition.

Many critics of the Call of Duty franchise and quite possibly Activision’s company stock, call for fatigue from players, and say that Activision runs the risk of losing this rabid fanbase because of saturating the market. Recently, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg addressed these concerns, and in the process likened the popular gaming franchise to the NFL in an interview with GI.biz.

“The NFL happens every year and people like it every year and they obsess over it every year and they come back for more every year, and I think that it’s an entertainment relationship that’s pretty unique in the gaming space,” the CEO explained. With Call of Duty, “You can’t find a metric that would indicate that it’s fatiguing or that there are signs of slowing. The concurrency of players is higher than ever, and not only that, it’s across several games.”

Call of Duty: Elite is finally hitting on all cylinders and it’s hard to argue its value for the hardcore Call of Duty fan.  With such a service in place, that delivers content month in and month out at a flat rate, I wonder if there’ll come a time where Elite replaces the yearly release cycle all-together?

Nevertheless, it’s not going to be this year, if recent rumors of a Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 hold true.  Another new content drop is on the way in March, and Xbox 360 gamers that don’t subscribe to the Call of Duty: Elite service will get their first crack at “Content Collection #1” later this month.