MLG features a Call of Duty esports battle.
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How Activision will make Call of Duty into a bigger esports draw

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 6 min

Call of Duty is already one of the most popular game franchises on Earth, with more than $15 billion in sales over the past decade. But Activision Blizzard, whose Activision Publishing division publishes the series, wants to make it even bigger by marrying the first-person shooter with the esports phenomenon.

Esports is expected grow to $892 million by the end of this year, market researcher SuperData forecasts.

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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.