Modern Warfare 2 outsold Avatar, claims developer
Initially, yes; longer term, no
First-person shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has grossed more than $1bn (£625m) in worldwide retail sales since its November launch, raking in more cash during its first five days on sale than blockbuster movie Avatar managed to do, the game's developer has claimed.
Over half of the game’s global sales revenues – some $550m (£338m) – was made during those crucial first five days, developer Infinity Ward said. Most of it - $310m (£190m) – was generated during the game’s first day.
It’s unclear quite how much money Avatar made globally during its first five days, though Infinity Ward insisted it wasn't as much cash as CoD:MW2 generated.
However, the film – released globally on 18 December – has since gone on to gross over $1.3bn (£798m), easily surpassing CoD:MW2's total.
Modern Warfare 2 also sold 4.7m units in both the US and UK during its first day, Infinity Ward added.
Given how much cheaper cinema tickets are than games discs, we can safely say that more people worldwide have experienced Avatar than Infinity Ward's shoot-'em-up.
Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, the game’s publisher, said CoD:MW2 had exceeded expectations and “shattered theatrical box office and videogame records". ®
COMMENTS
pointless attitude
well that's a pretty stupid attitude. Do you go through life depriving yourself of enjoyment over some childish belief that taking the equivalent of the moral high ground has any effect on anybody but you. How sad indeed
MW2
IW alienated clans who wanted their own dedicated servers to run training and play in ladder matches.
IW alienated the modding community when they dedicated not to have dedicated servers so there was no chance of people creating custom maps.
For these types of games to succeed on a PC the games need to allow players to create their own maps and create custom mods.
It was for these reasons why many people cancelled their orders and went back to CoD4.
Do this claim take into account cancelled or refunded orders?
This reminds me when there was an outcry from PC gamers about CoD2 which had no anti-cheat technology which caused the CoD community to lock out their servers for a day as a sign of protest.
MW2
To be fair to the people playing this on the PC, yes the port is horrible, and the multiplayer is a pile of pants. I'd be pretty pissed if i'd spent £40 of my hard-earned and been delivered that.
However, playing it on the 360, the single player is still biblically short, but the multiplayer is what makes this game brilliant. With the addition of the Special Ops multiplayer games, it's eaten up countless hours of my spare time. Easily got my money's worth out of it.
Although admittedly, I still keep getting mown down by countless players wielding those stupid dual-wielded shotguns.
And riot shields. I hate riot shields.
Well...
What I'd love to know is that this big thing happened that turned 90% of PC gamers off IW and MW2 by removing dedi servers, no community tools etc and el Reg report nothing. Nothing about pre-order being cancelled and it costing them serious money but with zero response from IW or Rob Bowles. ANd we had nothing in El Reg about it? Strange for such an uproar in the tech community.
Do I?
I rather thought you wouldn't approve of that comment. I will say three things in my defence:
1.I am a rational human being, as is Meg Ryan, and I therefore have no wish for her to come to *genuine* harm. However, I consider wanting to watch someone suffer *simulated* violence a fairly understandable impulse after experiencing the very real suffering inflicted by sitting through a film starring Meg Ryan.
2. Her gender has nothing to do with it and I would feel the same way if she were male. (Normally, responding to an accusation that hasn't been made is a sure sign of he doth protest too much, but I know what was going through your head.)
3. Even I actually was a truly sick individual who actually thought that actors should be horribly tortured for making bad films, at least I still wouldn't think Titanic was a good film.
