Modern Warfare 2: Bringing Balance to the Force?
November 14, 2009 by Shawn Deena
Filed under Video Game Marketing
Buy me and together, well alone I'll make a lot of money
No this is not an article proclaiming Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 to have mad jedi skills that will restore the sagging economy of the gaming industry. In this case, one game can’t make a difference. It can though, make a dent, get rave reviews and beat GTAIV in initial sales.
Not that moving 4.5 million units is something to scoff at but we’re a long way from proclaiming MW2 as the sign that the gaming sales slump is over. Still, it’s kind of mind blowing what they did. Think about the fact that we have the highest unemployment rate in almost three decades but we have one game raking in $310 million in one day of sales.
1 day!
Where are people getting the money to get a game that retails at $60? It’s a head scratcher for sure but for a game that already broke records the first time around, put together a massive marketing campaign for the sequel and had people talking about this game since July — well weak economy or not, it would seem people were willing to find the cash to spend on this game.
Think about this –the big Transformers sequel that came out this summer (Rise of the Fallen) only made $200 million — its first weekend.
So does this mean we can expect Assassin’s Creed 2 and Left for Dead 2 to bring it home and close out the year with some killer sales? Not exactly. They unlike Mw2 did not have the massive hype machine driving their promotion. Sure, the originals were big hits but will they have the massive launch day that MW2 had. Not likely. What this does prove is that if anyone still has doubts that videogames are not a viable industry then this past week should change your mind.
As Vader would say, “Impressive, Obi-Wan has taught you well.”
