Veterans to Benefit from Call of Duty Sales

Activision doesn’t get a whole lot of love from the gaming community. Rightly or not, the publishing giant’s priorities are often viewed as being heavily slanted towards massive profiteering over innovation. But the Bobby Kotick-owned company’s latest move is a classy one: Activision has founded an endowment fund to assist veterans as they return to civilian life.

The Call of Duty Endowment (CODE) will use profits from the sales of Modern Warfare 2 and other CoD titles to help fund organisations that train ex-soldiers for civilian jobs, as well as raising awareness of the problems veterans face through media and promotional campaigns. Activision has pledged to “donate and raise millions of dollars” for the endowment, which will be overseen by veterans from various branches of the US military.

At the launch of the endowment yesterday, Kotick said: “We embark on this effort as a grateful nation. Business leaders have an opportunity to renew their commitment to the American spirit and to reverse an alarming trend of not recognizing the sacrifices made by the men and women of our military service.”

$125,000 of CODE funds have also been granted to the Paralyzed Veterans of America service to help with rehabilitation and treatment of wounded soldiers.