Activision has apparently gone on a domain name shopping spree through the registrar MarkMonitor, acquiring over a dozen Call of Duty-related domain names that hint we might see the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Black Ops series go up to at least six titles.
Domain names like BlackOps6.com and CallofDutyMW6.com were registered.
Here’s a look at the full list of domain registrations that took place on August 15, 2011.
http://whois.domaintools.com/blackops4.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/blackops5.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/blackops6.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/callofdutyblackops3.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/callofdutyblackops4.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/callofdutyblackops5.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/callofdutyblackops6.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/callofdutymw5.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/callofdutymw6.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/codblackops3.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/codblackops4.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/codblackops5.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/codblackops6.com
The actual registrant of the name is DNS tination Inc, a Whois privacy service offered by MarkMonitor. But these domain names are almost certainly owned by Activision, as MarkMonitor is a well-known brand protection company used by top companies like Apple.
It’s entirely possible that these recent registrations are nothing more than part of the company’s intellectual property strategy, but if it’s learned anything from the fiasco over ModernWarfare3.com, it may be planning ahead.