Activison Announces Free-to-Play

Call of Duty for free!? Not for everyone...

Activision and Tencent (a Chinese game publisher) have teamed up to make a Call of Duty game for China. Unfortunatley, this will be a PC game only, since consoles are banned in China. Oh, the irony. The game will be completely free for customers, with other add-ons that can be purchased as an option to expand  and enhance the gaming experience.

"We're really enthusiastic about China as a market opportunity," said Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.

"It's unique content developed for the Chinese audience, developed for the Chinese model and a brand new game."

Although the game is completely free, Activision is still going to be able to make it's money. They will have a little in-game store that will let users pruchase perk upgrades and weapon upgrades. The game will feature maps from Call of Duty 4 as well as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. No word has been released about whether or not Modern Warfare 3 or Black Ops maps will be available as DLC. This is a great step for Activision to make its name popular.

Martin Lau, which is Tencent's current president, said, "We are thrilled to work with the world's premiere game developer and publisher to bring this much-awaited title to Chinese game players. We believe Call of Duty Online will attract tens of millions loyal fans in China, 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."

There is no word on the release date or whether or not it will be available outside of China. When going to this website users can see the Call of Duty Online website officially setup, in Chinese. You can watch the trailer below.

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