The controversial premium Call of Duty Elite service is intended to "unite" the audience for the Call of Duty series of military first=person shooters, Activision explains to MCV. "[Look at] the sheer scale of the audience – and not just by any individual game," Activision's VP of digital Jamie Berger told them. "There are four Call of Duty games in the top ten most played on Xbox Live." Here's more:

The number of people engaged made it clear to us that we had to step in and build something that was going to unite this audience. We’ve got this franchise that’s evolving but we weren’t allowing the player to evolve. We’re asking them to start all over again every year with each new game – and that can’t work.

So I think Elite is a recognition that we have 30m people worldwide doing something and we can’t just leave them to their own devices. We have to support them and get ahead of their needs, rather than always playing catch-up with them.