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Why Activision is making Call of Duty Elite into a free service (interview)

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Activision Blizzard is shifting gears and making its Call of Duty Elite paid service into a free service with the release of the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops II video game. In doing so, Activision will separate the Elite service — which offers enhanced social networking and community engagement for gamers — from the multiplayer map packs that Activision will continue to sell. Eric Hirshberg, chief executive of Activision Publishing, responded to our email questions about the change. Here’s a transcript of that email interview.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.