The world of eSports is continually growing, with Starcraft possibly the biggest of the lot. Activision has always wanted the Call of Duty games to be part of the eSports movement, but with its proliferation of run and gun gamers, the gameplay and level of competition has always just fallen short. With Call of Duty: Black Ops II however, Activision is hoping to change all that.
To be released on November 13th, the affectionately named BLOPS2 will feature a new League Play live streaming feature that will potentially help propel the game onto a whole new level for multiplayer gamers.
Using the power of YouTube, BLOPS2 will allow gamers to stream their matches live, across the internet, allowing people to watch the action unfold in real-time. The new feature has been mooted for a while now, but this is the first confirmation we have had, just five days before the game goes on sale.
Interestingly, the live streaming feature has only been confirmed for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game, with no mention at all of the PC flavor. That may simply be an oversight, or it may be a case of console gamers receiving an improved version of the game when compared to their PC-toting counterparts.
Those who subscribe to Activision’s Call of Duty Elite service will also be able to dig deeper into gamers’ history, with the ability to view match data and the like. This comes at a $50-per year premium, however, but Call of Duty’s diehard fans will happily pay up.
The use of YouTube as the game’s live streaming partner is an interesting one, with plenty of competition around the multiplayer streaming world these days. Google is perhaps best suited to streaming to large numbers of people, however, and we’d be interested to see if there is some kind of shared ad revenue model in place for the streamed matches. Google does like to make money, and this could be a great way of doing just that.
With just a few days to go before BLOPS2 hits store shelves, we won’t have to wait much longer before all our questions are answered.
(via TheNextWeb)
You can follow us on Twitter, add us to your circle on Google+ or like our Facebook page to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google, Apple and the web.
