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‘Call Of Duty’: Activision Lead Brand Manager Talks Making First-Person Shooter Number One

By Bryan Star
Published on: 15:55 PST, Jan 8, 2017

It looks as though Activision is hoping to rise from the ashes of Call of Duty’s criticism.

The eSports community has been a huge part of gaming for some time now, and expansion is on the rise. With huge broadcasts from ESPN and other sources of sports streaming games, fans and players can expect that gaming will be taken to another level. Jay Purer, Activisions’ Lead Brand Manager, has taken notice of this. As such, it’s reported by Inverse that Puryear conducted an interview and gave his thoughts on Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare taking the top spot in terms of games and competition.

It’s no secret that many shy away from the Call of Duty series. With recent reports of the game’s physical and digital sales causing concern for developers, many feel that the franchise hasn’t lived up to its potential since Modern Warfare 4.

When asked about eSports and Call of Duty’s place alongside popular games like Counter-Strike and League of Legends, Jay had this to say in response.

“From a CWL point of view, one of the things we focus on is really adding some structure to the Call of Duty scene in general. In the past, it was a lot of individual events that didn’t really have any correlation between the two. We really started to look at it holistically. How could teams start competing in the game from the beginning, at launch in November and December, and really have an event at the end to really culminate the activities?”

Jay continued in his response, noting the level of engagement between fans and organizers.

“I think for us, the ability to really add structure to create this concept of a league … and engaging not only the organizations and the fans, but just really focusing on how that all works has been the big thing that we’ve done to really solidify Call of Duty as an esport.”

Communities in eSports have always played a large part in a game’s popularity. After all, it’s the fans and players who decide the extent of a game’s life. Infinite Warfare, while a game surrounded with controversy, continues to see its online functionality used to a great degree. Developer Infinity Ward’s Community Manager, Ashton Williams, also chimed in during the interview, discussing the push for community involvement.

“This is something that’s always been driven by the community, and Ashton’s been involved in that community quite a bit as well, so this was something that was just grassroots, very organic,” Jay began. “You know, CoD‘s been played competitively now for seven to ten years, something like that?”

“10 years,” Ashton stated.

According to Express, Infinity Ward has also created a new game mode that players can participate in. Called “Reinforce,” players will be able to revive teammates via a “Capture” mechanic.

“Reinforce is a team elimination 4v4 mode where you capture points to revive fallen teammates. Taking all points or killing the enemy team will win the round,” Infinity Ward notes.

Through actions like this, Jay hopes to bring eSports and community participation closer. It’s certainly going to add spice to the base content of Infinite Warfare, if for nothing more than an experiment of sorts to see what direction needs to be taken.

“It’s a combination of Activision and the reach that it has socially, and being able to use Activision and the brand for Call of Duty to bring awareness to that. I think Ashton can talk about how some of the game features that they’ve done have really helped support some of that.”

Ashton notes that social media and interaction grow together, playing a hand in how they’re able to implement better spirit in a game as “on the fence” as Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.

While it remains to be seen whether or not Infinite Warfare will be at the top spot of eSports, one can only hope that it’ll bring more viewership to gaming as a whole.

[Featured Image By Activision]

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