Ben-DutkaWell, it was bound to happen.
Today, Activision Publishing, Inc. has announced that Call of Duty: Black Ops II has passed the $1 billion threshold in worldwide sales, "according to Chart-Track retail customer sell-through info and internal company estimates."
It took just over two weeks (15 days) for the mega blockbuster to hit the billion-dollar plateau and in comparison, last year's Modern Warfare 3 took 16 days. Therefore, previous analyst concerns about the franchise slowing down might not be entirely accurate, depending on your view of the numbers. By the way, the box office record for films is 17 days; "Avatar" raked in $1 billion in that span of time back in 2009.
Said Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick:
"The release of Call of Duty® has been one of the most significant entertainment events of each of the last six years. Since Call of Duty was launched, cumulative franchise revenues from players around the world are greater than current worldwide box office receipts to date for the top-10 grossing films of 2012 combined. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for 'Harry Potter' and 'Star Wars,' the two most successful movie franchises of all time."
By the way, since Black Ops II hit store shelves, over 150 million hours have been logged playing on the PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE services. …yeah. That's like, a ton of time.
Related Game(s): Call of Duty: Black Ops II
hehe VGchartz should shut down =p
Yeah, but according to GamesIndustry's email, it also seems that gamers aren't playing it(hours wise) as much as they were on MW3.
Last edited by BikerSaint on 12/5/2012 12:03:47 PM
I just laugh, because so many people jumped at the opportunity to say anything negative about the hypothetical wall. The reason first week sales were lower was simply because consumer trends change! The fact of the matter is with sales like this (that no other games have even came close to) numbers will fluctuate a little bit, and will be more noticeable. But here we are after 2 weeks and a day and CoD has yet again outdone itself. People love the games, and will continue to buy it.
Last edited by bigrailer19 on 12/5/2012 12:25:49 PM
You sir, get a thumbs up, and Activision gets richer.
Ha Ha. Told you. Everyone would just love to see this franchise fall. Not gonna happen
As for myself, I'm not downing Blops2, I actually liked playing all of the COD's so far,(but in SP mode only & my only complaint is that SP is always way too short).
I just stated a fact that was presented to me from my email from GameIndustry & I would've also put up the link, except that I didn't care much about it & had deleted it 10 or so before Ben made this thread.
Remember they are self-policing these numbers. They saw some worry out there and then rejiggered the estimates to give the fan base some confidence in stability.
We'll see how it goes when Sledgehammer's addition gets CoD on an every 6-month release schedule.
I don't think the fan base really cares about numbers. They just want the games. That's obvious… $1 billion in sales after just over 2 weeks! I'd say nothing matter aside from it's release date.
They have no reason to "rejigger" anything. The franchise is successful regardless if the numbers were a little lower than MW3 at any point or a little higher. Because when we are talking billions of dollars a few million isn't anything either way to stress about. They simply have no reason to skew anything. Not saying they did or didn't, but certainly no one was worried about CoD's success.
Nonsense. The strength of a brand, its status in the public mind, is a very important invisible product. Activision is well aware that reports were trickling in that the days of breaking records were coming to an end and if customer confidence in the brand is allowed to be undermined they are also aware that it will keep getting "cooler" to hate on CoD. Gamers tend to jump ship very fast and all at once rather than over time so there's every reason for these figures to be massaged for public consumption. Remember we are dealing with a "me too" fanbase, they WILL turn against their favorite franchise when their friends do.
World… BO2 reached 1 billion dollars faster then any previous version.
Speculation on the future doesn't change that fact.
You're right, it sounds like another PR spin.
I assume as far as game units sold, the revenue is based on what Activision sold to retail outlets and not what was sold to the actual customer/gamer. I have read a few articles stating that units sold to customers are down from MW3. This shows to me that there are a lot of units on retail shelves, displays, and in warehouses.
I just want to get one thing straight. Are you really saying that Activision is worried about CoD sales so much that they flubbed these numbers a bit?
No, I'm saying they have people working on the eventuality of brand oversaturation.
Truly amazing! I for one love BOII and will play it off and on when I need a break from FC3 if that's possible. I just prestiged on Monday night, perfect timing! Thinking of going back and prestiging on MW3 as well at some point. I didn't play MW3 to much because I was always into something else. I thought it was also great, loved the maps.
so the series popularity is not waning like the tin foil men said?
eh, not exactly surprising.
especially since its a very different game to what the previous series have offered, and in fact its allot more like IWs MW series than the traditional treyarch game so i wonder if thats helped sales slightly.
after all the MW series has always been more popular.
Who gives a sh**, drop the prices are the DLC maps already starting from MW1. They may get richer but what are they to do will all that money, hmmm.
Last edited by AcHiLLiA on 12/6/2012 11:52:48 AM
i got blops2 last week i think havent really been playin it much you would not BELIEVE how many ppl camp… its all little kids and NOONE works as a team unless your actually in a team going online otherwise noone works together uav? naw leave it up were gunna lose by 3 kills? leave the airplanes and helicopters an shit in the sky… god ppl are annoying in call of duty if your not gunna play like your suppose to or your not good dont go online for crying out louc COL