Activision equates Call of Duty with "a year-round activity" instead of an annual release

Activision has said any negative connotations which can come about with annual game releases don't really apply to the Call of Duty franchise.

That's according to the firm's publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg.

"That's the conventional wisdom in the gaming industry," Hirshberg told GI.biz. "If you start from that place, of looking at what gamers want and what their behavior would suggest- they want more DLC, they want more new gameplay experiences.

"And so, we're starting with that and building it out. We're not starting with the conventional wisdom of the industry and going in. So, if you look at it like an annual retail release, by those standards, it's easy to get nervous."

Hirshberg, who has seen the firm's shooter franchise evolve from a yearly, one-off event into a full-fledged service, equates the series with the NFL as a "year-round activity."

"If you look at it through a different lens; if you look at it like, the NFL happens every year and people like it every year and they obsess over it every year and they come back for more every year and I think that it's an entertainment relationship that's pretty unique in the gaming space," he said.

The way to keep things fresh, and curtail fatigue, according to Hirshberg, is with regular content releases  - something the firm is currently experimenting with via Elite.

"You can't find a metric that would indicate that it's fatiguing or that there are signs of slowing. The concurrency of players is higher than ever and not only that, it's across several games... what we're trying to do is make it more of a diversified business within itself. "

Earlier this week, the firm announced the Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection #1 would release on Xbox Live March 20 and  Content Drops 4-6, featuring Black Box, Negotiator and Black Ice, would be available for download on March 13 for Elite members and available on other platforms at a later date.