Black Ops getting biggest investment ever

Bobby Kotick has said that his company Activision is spending more on marketing this November’s Call of Duty: Black Ops than it has spent on any other title.

This across the board is the biggest investment that we’ve ever made in a launch of a title,” the exec told investors. The market opportunity is bigger than it’s ever been. The installed base of hardware is bigger than it’s ever been.

The product has incredibly broad appeal and also has a whole host of functions that are going to be unique to the core consumer. From that perspective, we feel like it’s the most appropriate Activision product to put these kinds of resources behind. And I think there’s a lot of competition, not just from games but from a whole host of other things that you can do with your leisure times. And this is something that we think has the potential to break through and appeal to a much broader consumer base than ever before.”

Kotick also took the opportunity to big up what he clearly believes will be a genre-defining product.

Our decision last February to organise a separate business unit focused on Call of Duty was an example of the recognition of the need to dedicate the best resources towards the tens of millions of players who are playing Call of Duty games,” he stated.

In Call of Duty: Black Ops we are raising the bar to extraordinary levels. The game is one of the best we have ever created. There isn’t anything quite like it.”