Former Activision Exec Aims to "Dethrone" Call of Duty

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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Former Activision Exec Aims to "Dethrone" Call of Duty


Former Activision exec Dusty Welch says his new studio intends to "dethrone" Call of Duty with a top-quality, free-to-play shooter that runs in a browser.

We all know what Call of Duty [http://www.amazon.com/Call-Duty-Modern-Warfare-Xbox-360/dp/B00503E8S2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322500872&sr=8-1] is, but who is Dusty Welch? A crash course for those of you who don't have internet access: he's not a developer but his time with Activision stretches back to the mid-90s, when he served as the company's senior director of global brand management. In the years since, he's overseen a lot of big-name Activision titles including just about every id Software title released since Quake, Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, Star Trek: Elite Force 2, numerous Guitar Hero games and every Call of Duty release from the original in 2003 all the way up to World at War.

And now he's stepping out on his own as the founder and CEO of U4iA ["Euphoria," if you haven't figured it out for yourself already] and he's setting his sights high: he wants to take out the great Call of Duty behemoth he helped build.

"I created Call Of Duty to dethrone the established leaders back in the early 2000s, and you bet my goal at U4iA is to repeat that success again," he told GamesIndustry.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-11-28-creating-a-cod-killer-interview]. "Providing a AAA, first person shooter experience in a browser is really what the end game is for us. And I think that's going to help lead the new dynamic and a transition of gamers into the social."

Browser-based and social though it may be, Welch said he's aiming directly at the core gamer market with the new project. Details aren't yet available but when it comes time to unveil it to the world, he said it will be important to ensure that consumers understand exactly what they're in for. "We're going to fish where the fish are, we're going to go after and target core and active gamers," he explained. "We are making a great AAA game for active and core gamers that happens to be available on the more social platforms."

Call of Duty isn't U4iA's only high-profile target. Welch also said that he hopes to match or exceed the numbers put up by Riot Games' free-to-play League of Legends, which recently hit a staggering 11.5 million monthly active users [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114283-League-of-Legends-Muscles-Past-World-of-Warcraft]. "I think that yeah, U4iA can match or exceed the user base that Riot is experiencing today," he said. "Much bigger genre, sticky proposition, e-sport competitive first person shooters are the hallmark of why so many gamers are playing on Xboxes and PlayStation 3s today, and we're going to provide a whole unique way to experience that in a AAA free-to-play package."


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gigastar

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Sep 13, 2010
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Andy Chalk said:
Former Activision exec Dusty Welch says his new studio intends to "dethrone" Call of Duty with a top-quality, free-to-play shooter than runs in a browser.
Typo Alert.

OT: Good luck and godspeed because youre running right into the firing line of Team Fortress 2.
 

MurderousToaster

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Aug 9, 2008
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I can just imagine Kotick lighting up a cigar made of money while drinking some whiskey and dismissively saying "That's nice, Welch".
 

Micalas

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Mar 5, 2011
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Anyone else feel the urge to stove in his head with a lead pipe after reading the name of his company?
 

EvilPicnic

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Sep 9, 2009
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*paraphrase*:

'I am going to make a game and it shall be the greatest game ever, and it shall have more content than any game there has ever been, and will have more players than there are people on the planet, and it will be the most awesomest thing you have ever seen: all games before and after will be obsolete, and it will be so coooooool!'

>.<
 

Baldr

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Jan 6, 2010
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To bad Ubisoft is years ahead of him with Ghost Recon Online.(except play in the browser part)
 

DarksideFlame

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Feb 9, 2011
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Well, best of fucking luck to him because of the sales MW3 had then this ain't gonna be a easy task
 

wammnebu

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Sep 25, 2010
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well you cant fault him for a lack of ambition,

he may not dethrone cod, but i hope an awesome game comes out of this
 

AugustFall

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May 5, 2009
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And again it's the execs and publishers talking big rather than the devs. If the game isn't good it's not going to be big "insert CoD joke here"

CoD gets flack but it's a tight multiplayer game with a huge fanbase. That huge fanbase is what makes it good because there is always new people to play with.

You need to build that fanbase first and he's not doing that.
 

Bolt-206

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Dec 6, 2010
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Well... good luck.
It'd probably be better to set his sights slightly lower then where they are now; He want's to make a free-to-play FPS right? So I'd say one of his biggest targets to beat would be Nexon's Combat Arms, another F2P FPS that has a couple million players (4 mill if the site's got it right).
THEN he can worry about other F2P shooters, like TF2.
 

VanBasten

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Aug 20, 2009
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Andy Chalk said:
"I created Call Of Duty
I think Messrs Zampella and West might disagree with this statement.

Ten bucks says this never gets released, another ten says this ridiculously named studio folds within a year.
 

theonecookie

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Apr 14, 2009
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When will people learn that you can't beat the best by copy and pasting You need something new and shiny. I mean look at how well all them wow and cod clones have done so far
 

Sixcess

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Feb 27, 2010
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If I was an investor in this company I'd take one look at this and pull all of my money out of it before they piss it away.

Anyway, seeing as he's going to overthrow CoD and LoL why doesn't he go for the hat-trick and announce they're making a "WoW-killer" MMO as well...
 

Michael Hirst

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May 18, 2011
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Don't try to beat Call of Duty, just make a good game instead, Call of Duty has proven that a lot of its fanbase are firmly solid with the franchise and WONT explore outside of it with anything remotely similar.

There are enough people compeltely bored with COD (and battlefield for that matter) who just want a good and slightly original shooter. Personally I'd just be happy if UT2004 got a HD boot up its arse and a larger playerbase again, I miss that game like I'm in a far away land and I'm homesick.
 

Smooth Operator

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Oct 5, 2010
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Facebook of Duty then?
Well I'm sure there will be a big enough social audience, but I'm also pretty sure I wouldn't want to touch this with a 10 foot pole.