Modern Warfare 3 tops $1 billion in 16 days

i don't care how much they profit, i just wanna play GAMES alright.. (like the good old days) :)

What is it about CoD that made it such a ridiculously huge hit? We've had multiplayer FPS games for 20+ years now. What makes this one sell so much more, and on a yearly basis?

$400 million first day from 2 markets. $775 mil. in five days worldwide. A billion in 16 days. Unlike Avatar, MW3 started HUGE and is fading pretty quickly. Avatar got a solid start and held steady for weeks. Obviously, it is a smash hit, but to me the pattern raises questions about whether it will hold as well into next year as the last two CoD games did. If the people who aren't early adopters break even a little towards BF3, MW3 could end up being a slight disappointment for Activision (as much as a game that was made using copy/paste but sold MASSIVE amounts can be said to be disappointing).

I don't want to live on this planet anymore

@gameking5000 I didn't like BF3 (buggy mess with worst campaign of any shooter in last few years), but it did exactly what EA wanted it to do. No one reasonably expected BF3 to outsell MW3, just to carve out a piece of the military shooter pie for EA. It did that. BF3 has sold exceptionally well. EA managed to get a foot in the door in a way that they didn't with Medal of Honor last year, so BF3 was a success for them.

that's over 30 million too many...

1 Billion Dollars that could have been spent on Skyrim

@ gameking5000 BF3 failed hard?People will continue to play BF3 for years as if it came out yesterday.MW3 has already come and gone.Just check the servers. The BF3 "back to kirkand" map pack is epic btw. I honestly dont get the point of fanboism with COD. If you like COD multiplay style stuff,play BF3 team deathmatch...its the same feel,but without over the top killstrak perks. Then when you get tired of the deathmatch chaos,,,,just play the regular BF3 modes with all the vics and large maps/teamplay.The game has it all.

if any of you claim that the stupid fanboys or ppl that just plain hate COD still buy MW3, you're wrong..i think the ppl that bash COD and hate news of COD's success, i think they truly didn't buy it..but if you look it over, im guessing its probably just around 50 or a little more..BUT those 50 or more ppl go to ALL the comment sections on ALL the gaming sites just to spread out their hate, hoping their pointless criticism might change a fan's perspective about COD, not the knowing the fact that they can't change anyone's perspective cause they are a NOBODY

it seems like every1 is quitting mw3 already. i think bops has more that still play it.

Battlefield 3 and EA have failed hard.

If you bought MW3 I feel bad for you son, I've played 99 games and it ain't one.

It's probably bought by the same people that buy every Halo and Gears of War game.

-_- I hate people. And CoD.

It's also 7x as expensive as a movie ticket and only won by a day. Apples to oranges...

Who cares at this point I played it & the story & campain was average & online maps suck there just a bunch of roads wit buildes & camper spots & 4real BF3 sucked 2 nothing special I'm tired of FPS time 4 sumthing new

Why are people getting butt-hurt because COD reached $1 bill? I don't get it.

and thus the reason I don't go with the mainstream often well with the exception of skyrim but thats quality

And hear I thought MW3 didn't live up to the hype.

McDonalds sells millions and billions of burgers every year. Does that mean that theirs are the best, or just the best selling?

ah stop it. play it if u like it, and don't play it if u don't like it.

But then again, the movie sold with cheap tickets. blu-ray and dvds are much more expensive

Even though I'm not the biggest Call of Duty fan, I haven't even bought this game yet,35 days since the release of MW3. Eventually I will buy this but I'm not a huge fan of FPS on-line mulitplayer. I'll give it a go. This is impressive never the less, for a sales record. If I was 16 then I would be more into this game. I'll still buy it and enjoy it for what it is. Pachter would seem more happy that he was right about this selling lots.

Imagine how much it would've sold if it were actually a good, fresh game. I've passed on it because I'm sick of Call of Duty oversaturation, and I wasn't impressed with Black Ops. I thought about asking for it as a gift just to check out the co-op modes, but I don't want anyone helping fill Activision's coffers on my behalf.

Why does crap sell so well? Twilight Breaking Dawn is topping the box office right now and COD in the video game industry. Not fair to other directors and game developers who put heart and lots of effort into making a great product.

GTA V will be the next one to break this record.

Now Activision, can you make a new game engine with all that bajillion dollars?

The fact that video games are 4 times more expensive than movie tickets accounts for this. When it comes to numbers of individual people paying for the entertainment Avatar owned COD easily.

Publish your numbers Activision so we can all see. Creating hype is easy, those numbers if you dont mind for all us gamers

30 million ain't really that much when you compare it to the 7 billion people on earth, just saying. Its ok because only 0.4% of the population are COD fans

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

How dare they compare CoD to Star Wars. Star Wars fans should feel insulted

how the...?

@j_pires128 That's what I said, number of tickets. If they are able to count the number of tickets, Avatar number will exceed Modern Warfare 3

Khoo1992 Avatar sells are box office, not dvd.

honestly im starting to get sick of all this FPS crap,leaves me wanting more RPG titles.

Faster than Avatar?! Yeah, right Bobby. MW3 sells for $60 while Avatar is just like $10-$15. Count the number of tickets sales or number of copies from the $1 billion and your COD will not be as impressive as you say.

Comparing CoD to Harry Potter, LOTR and NFL... ok... Comparing it to Star Wars... Sorry but CoD misses that mark terribly, Star Wars has a much bigger fan base than what call of duty has, and its been around for... a really long time while sustaining that fan base. Enjoy it while it lasts Activision because you will run this once good franchise into the ground, and it will be sooner than you think.

Kids and casuals now dominate the FPS genre. That's the only conclusion you can draw from these numbers.

yeah ppl buy it cuz of the hype, but i havent even touched the game in 2 weeks.. for gods sake black ops had a more everlasting effect than this trash!

all this money yet they cant even get their servers running right...greedy bastards!

@Originalyeti82 except that that handicap is offset by the fact that a lower price automatically attracts more people. There is no doubt that more people saw Avatar than people that have played MW3, but that doesn't make this statistic any less impressive. It's pretty impressive that 1/6 of the people that saw Avatar are willing to pay 6 times as much for this piece of entertainment.

They're pretty arrogant to compare CoD to Star Wars. Star Wars has been around for over 30yrs and has a massive fanbase with hundreds of billions generated across multiple mediums. There has never been a video game franchise which has achieved that type of following and there never will.

With all the money Activision makes you`d think they`d make some bada$$ new ip`s and give back to gamers but noooooo.

I am not a fan of what CoD turned into, but this is rather significant. If a video game can outsell a top of the line Hollywood blockbuster, then you know the video game industry is doing quite well for itself from a business point of view. And to think Richard Gariott claimed social games are going to become the mainstay of video games... Hah... I think not.

well that's too bad

While it's astonishing that something like this is even capable of competing with big blockbuster films like AVATAR, the revenue should consider a handicap. back when avatar came out, tickets were approximately 10 dollars in the US, a copy of Modern Warfare 3 is 60 dollars with 10 dollars for every rental of the game for the online pass. so essentially, each purchase of MW3 is the equivalent of about 6 Avatar movie goers. It's great to see this happen, but given the clear monetary advantage Activision has in the product, it's not as surprising as one would think.

you may have got a billion dollars activision but none of that came from me!! ahaha.

I think Modern Warfare is franchising successful because good. Although it is the same as the previous ones, is something he likes people and is good.

The fact that so much money is being transferred to the gaming industry is a great plus for gamers in general, more eyes than ever will focus on this industry with numbers like this. It's sad, however, that COD is the game to get to this milestone, because so many other companies will try to copy its success(and likely fail miserably), rather than try to innovate. I'm glad BF3 tried to innovate and is totally dfifferent than COD, hopefully others will follow. On a side note, this means that Transformers:Fall of Cybertron , is in great hands...no chance of it going over budget now.