Activision creates new studio for call of duty franchise

While other Activision franchises are dying, Call of Duty is still thriving. After revealing that it would cut the Guitar Hero franchise and True Crime: Hong Kong, the company also announced via its earnings call that it has created a new studio, Beachhead.

Beachhead is said to focus on "digital content" for the Call of Duty franchise. In practice, that means they will create an all-new digital content portal and community experience. This new "portal" has been in development for around a year and sounds in concept like a combination of ideas behind platforms like Valve's Steam and Halo Waypoint.

In other Call of Duty news, Activision revealed a free to play game specifically developed for the Chinese market with a micro-transaction driven business model in mind. So if you don't live in China, don't hold your breath.

In case you aren't keeping track, that's now five studios ( Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Raven, Sledgehammer, and now Beachhead) focused on the Call of Duty franchise alone.

NOTICE:

Currently the site has a few issues that we are in the process of working out. About a week and a half ago one of the main components running our site (Jomsocial) was updated. Unfortunately this caused some compatibility issues with some older plugins. In the process of updating the other programs some core functionality was lost due to other bugs. The biggest of which was the Private Messaging (PM) system and the ability for new users to register on the site. Those problems, that existed for about 4 or 5 days, has since been fixed.

Now that those main site functions are working I am going to start addressing the other issues. These issues are mostly related to the "Group" system. In particular Wall postings and Group Discussion assignments.

I am hopeful that once these issues are fixed we can then start using the "Groups" as they are intended.

I know Fireman in particular was wanting to use the "News Assistants Group" to get info on posting stories on the site.

Once the site is more stable, I will begin redesigning it so that it is hopefully more informative. I am hoping to have this complete by the next meeting on Feb 1.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

PFunk

Add comment (2)

Bad Company 2 Proves PC Gamers Are Better Gamers Than Console Gamers

When the Vietnam expansion for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was released, it came with 4 multiplayer maps and a collaborative challenge to enable the 5th map.

DICE, the game’s developer challenged each platform fans to perform 69 million collective team actions in order to unlock a remastered version of the "Operation Hastings" multiplayer map for their platform. Just eight days after the game’s release PC gamers managed to fulfill their quota and unlocked the map while Xbox 360 and Playstation fans were still lagging behind at 36.6 million and 27.7 million collective team actions consecutively.

It is worth noting that team actions include spotting, performing repairs, and healing, reviving and resupplying other teammates and that enemy kills (frags) don’t count. This seems to indicate that the difference isn’t due to the difference in control schemes (Mouse + Keyboard vs. Gamepad), but rather due to the difference in each platform gamers’ mindset and play style where console gamers prefer to go solo guns blazing while PC players tend to be more cooperative and organized in team play.

Add comment (1)

Black ops upcoming patch

Black Ops PC Patch Update

Categories: Announcements, FPS, Multiplayer, PC Gaming, Updates | 0 comments

Black Ops Cockpit Screen

To the joy of many PC gamers everywhere, the PC version of Call of Duty: Black Ops is getting patched. This doesn’t come much as a surprise, but it is good to hear that Treyarch is mad at the helm to fix the bugs that are plaguing their PC masterpiece. Here is a look at what is getting fixed in the new update:

GPU hitching on certain graphics cards.

Incomplete server browser results.

Improvements to Quickmatch joins (results with better ping and reduced lag).

Zombies “The game session is no longer available” error.

So, with this new piece of information, we have a fun little discussion question for you. Do you think that Black Ops is more glitchy than other games in the series, or is it just that since more people are playing it, more are noticing it? I happen to think it’s the latter choice, but that’s just me.

No specific date has been given for the update, but as always, we believe it to be “soon.”

Add comment (0)

Weekly Black Ops Giveaway!

Black Ops: Latest Intel

Weekly Black Ops Giveaway!

News: October 8th, 201092 Comments

We're pleased to bring COD HQ registered members a weekly giveaway leading up to the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops! First, let’s start with the prizes that are up for grabs…

Prizes: (Official Rules)

Prestige Edition of the game (at launch)
Hardened Edition of the game (at launch)
Black Ops hoodie (pictured below)
Black Ops T-shirt (pictured below)

Eligibility:

You must be a registered user of CallOfDuty.com (aka COD HQ)
You must be 18 years or older
You must reside within the United States of America

Yes, it's a bummer for the UK and other territories… It's a legal thing - we're sorry!

We will be picking winners at random starting next week. We’ll do a drawing each Monday of every week leading up to Black Ops' release on November 9th. Winners will be first announced via Twitter (follow @JD_2020), followed by announcements on COD.com and the Black Ops Fan Page. Additionally, the winner will be contacted by e-mail so you won’t miss it! Make sure to register now!

Prestige Edition