Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Activision

Star Wars: The Old Republic Is EA’s Most Expensive Game

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:30:54 +0000

Star Wars: The Old Republic is Electronic Arts’ most expensive game put together in their 30-year history. The game features Jedis, Wookies, and Siths that are just like the characters in the popular movie series. It is believed that EA put in between $100 and $300 million into this game, but EA has not spilled any information on costs that are associated with development and licensing.

The cost of the gamer is $60 up front. To play it as an multiplayer online game, it is believed to cost about $15 per month. EA spent about three and a half years building the game to go directly after Activision Blizzard’s World of Warcraft (WoW). WoW generates about $1 billion in revenue. To build the game, EA hired about 1,000 voice actors for the game, which has broken an industry record.

The game needs about 500,000 subscribers to break even on the game. The game was developed by about 400 full-time EA employees.

[Huffington Post]

Activision Releases Call Of Duty Black Ops Zombie For Apple App Store

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:33:20 +0000

Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI) has released a new Universal App game in the Call of Duty franchise for the Apple iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies has 50 levels and it allows gamers to play solo or join a team of up to four. The game was developed by the Ideaworks Game Studio and and is available for $6.99 from the App Store today. [iTunes link]

Say Goodbye To The Guitar Hero Franchise

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 08:44:37 +0000

Activision has decided to pull the plug on the Guitar Hero game series and brand. In the last few years, the brand has been on the decline. There will also be some job cuts in the DJ Hero division. It is a sad day for music and video game lovers. [Engadget]

Walker Digital Suing Zynga and Activision Blizzard

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 21:14:35 +0000

Walker Digital is an “invention” company that was founded by Price.com co-founder Jay S. Walker. Previously Walker announced that they are suing Facebook. Now the company is suing Zynga, Activision, and Activision subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment. The patent that Walker owns is called ‘DATABASE DRIVEN ONLINE DISTRIBUTED TOURNAMENT SYSTEM’ (patent #6,425,828). Some of the games in question of the patent are Mafia Wars (Zynga), Wolfenstein (Activision), Call of Duty (Activision Blizzard), and World of Warcraft (Blizzard). [TechCrunch]

Activision Suing EA For $400 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 18:21:43 +0000

Activision has added Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) to a $400 million lawsuit. Activision fired Jason West and Vince Zampella this past March. Activision believes that EA had “intentionally interfere with contracts, engaged in unfair competition and aided and abetted breaches of fiduciary duty by the executives.” Apparently EA was talking to West and Zampella through talent agency Creative Artists before the two finished working on Modern Warfare 2.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Passes $1 Billion In Sales

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:33:22 +0000

Activision has announced that Call of Duty: Black Ops has passed $1 billion in sales. This is faster than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Black Ops sold $650 million in the first 5 days since it released worldwide on November 9th.

“In all of entertainment, only Call of Duty and “Avatar” have ever achieved the billion dollar revenue milestone this quickly,” stated Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. “This is a tribute to the global appeal of the Call of Duty franchise, the exceptional talent at Treyarch and the hundreds of extraordinary people across our many Call of Duty studios including Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer that work tirelessly on the franchise. Our ability to provide the most compelling, immersive entertainment experience, and enhance it with regular, recurring content that delivers hundreds of hours of audience value, has allowed Call of Duty to continue to set sales and usage records.”

[Kotaku]

Call of Duty: Black Ops Breaks Sales Record With $360 Million In One Day

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:32:56 +0000

Activision has announced that they have a new “biggest entertainment launch in history” record through the sales of Call of Duty: Black Ops. Activision estimates that they made $360 million on the opening day of the game sales in the U.K. and North America. About 5.6 million copies of the game were sold on the first day.

Call of Duty: Black Ops succeeds Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which had the previous “biggest entertainment launch in history.” That game brought in $310 million on launch day and sold 4.7 million copies.

“There has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records for two consecutive years and we are on track to outperform last year’s five-day global sales record of $550 million,” stated Activision CEO Bobby Kotick.

[USA Today]

Activision Releases New Call of Duty: Black Ops Trailer [VIDEO]

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 18:08:11 +0000

Activision has released a new trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops during the Sunday Night football game. The trailer claims that this is the “biggest game of 2010″ and I would agree with them considering the track record of the CoD series. Check out the trailer below:

Activision Releases Call of Duty Black Ops Trailer [VIDEO]

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 03 May 2010 06:03:12 +0000

Activision has released the official game trailer for Call of Duty Black Ops. This game looks almost as action-packed as Modern Warfare, but I’ll let you be the judge of that — video is embedded below:

40 Current and Former Infinity Ward Developers Suing Activision For $500 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:35:21 +0000

About 40 past and current Infinity Ward developers are suing the company because of breach of contract and unpaid royalties for the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The class action lawsuit seeks $500 million from Activision’s Infinity Ward over unpaid bonuses, profit sharing, punitive damages and future profits from future games including Modern Warfare 3. The payments were withheld to prevent employees from leaving Activision.

“In short, Activision withheld the property of the IWEG in an attempt to keep the employees hostage so that Activision could reap the benefit of the completion of Modern Warfare 3, ” stated a document filed for the lawsuit. Jason West and Vince Zampella are two of the people behind the lawsuit. The two filed a lawsuit against Activision and is seeking $36 million in unpaid royalties. West and Zampella started a gaming studio of their own called Respawn Entertainment and even signed a deal with Electronic Arts already. [Kotaku]