Fourth Call of Duty game coming to Game Pass Premium this month, Xbox further reveals conversion strategy for franchise

The fourth Call of Duty game will soon be available on the middle tier of Xbox Game Pass, indicating more parts of Microsoft's multi-faceted plan for the franchise.

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Microsoft's main goal with Call of Duty is conversion. The company isn't trying to replicate Activision's success, but adapt the $35 billion+ mega-hit franchise into a more flexible ecosystem of long-term spending. By adding something like Call of Duty to a subscription like Game Pass, Microsoft has turned the property into a kind of perpetual, living entity that drives significant value for its service, with the aim of capturing recurring subscription revenues and microtransaction spending.

Given what we know about Microsoft's business model, it then seems noteworthy when a new Call of Duty game is added to Game Pass, especially when it's included in the middle-grade, $14.99/month Game Pass Premium tier. It's been revealed that Modern Warfare (2019) is being added to the Premium tier, making it the fourth AAA mainline Call of Duty game being added.

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Modern Warfare 2019 has already generated significant revenues throughout the years, and it was revealed that the MW reboot sold 41 million copies, easily outselling entire video game franchises with a single release.

The game was also recently discounted steeply on Steam for just $5.99, leading to a record-breaking 61K players on the platform.

So, we're seeing a pattern here: Long after initial sales, Call of Duty games could get massively steep discounts on specific platforms in a bid to push engagement and sales. In these games, engagement is the precursor to microtransaction spending. Then rotating older titles like MW into Game Pass permanently adds value to the service as long as it's included.

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It's important to remember that Game Pass Premium is a digital catalog where older games primarily reside.

New Call of Duty games are exclusiveto the more-expensive $30/month Game Pass Ultimate tier, but when those games are past their initial prime, they can move over to the Premium tier.

Bifurcating assets and content across two different tiers splits the value proposition for those subscriptions in an attempt to make the franchise more flexible.

In the past, Activision was strongly opposed to hosting Call of Duty games on a service like Game Pass, and when Call of Duty did appear on subscriptions, Activision instead opted for the limited 1-month timing of PS Plus. The company was also vehemently against launching Call of Duty onto a subscription, mainly because this would eat game sales and significantly impact how much money Activision made.

The franchise was previously an annual game sales powerhouse, but since Microsoft bought Activision, Call of Duty's raw game sales volume has decreased due to its inclusion on Game Pass. It's not necessarily true to say that Call of Duty has been devalued as a whole, despite impacts to its status quo revenues--it's more apt to say that Call of Duty has been converted into a more malleable asset.