Activision Purchases BlackOps2.com

Activison has gone through brand-protection firm MarkMonitor to purchase a domain name: BlackOps2.com.

The news comes from Fusible, who noticed that ownership had shifted from an anonymous GoDaddy customer to MarkMonitor, a company that Activision has used several times in the past.

While it's easy to extrapolate that a Black Ops sequel is on the way, this move is hardly confirmation to that end. Activision made a bulk purchase of Call of Duty domains covering everything up to a sixth entry in the Modern Warfare and Black Ops franchises — with BlackOps2.com being the glaring omission — last August. The company also suffered a high-profile fiasco when they failed to acquire ModernWarfare3.com, so it's only reasonable for them to plan for every contingency.

Still, Black Ops remains one of the best-selling games of all time, and it's perhaps telling that Activision pursued this domain for a full five months after their initial purchases. There's a chance Activision may have been pressured to reach a deal before any official announcement was made.

Of course, any speculation about Call of Duty's future will remain just that until Activision reveals this year's release. With PAX East and E3 rapidly approaching, we're bound to hear something before too much longer.