Call of Duty: Black Ops tops $1 billion

Call of Duty: Black Ops continues to mark off milestones, as Activision today announced that the Treyarch first-person shooter has reaped $1 billion in revenues since its November 9 debut. According to the publisher, "in all of entertainment," only James Cameron's blockbuster film Avatar has managed to break the billion-dollar mark that quickly.

It helped that Black Ops got off to a fast start. In the first 24 hours, 5.6 million gamers answered the latest Call of Duty for a total of $360 million in sales. Within the first five days, Black Ops sales had reached $650 million. Those numbers trumped last year's opening for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which posted a 4.7 million unit, $310 million one-day total and reached $550 million in five days.

Naturally, people aren't just buying the game; they're also playing it in abundance. Activision claimed players have spent more than 600 million hours with Black Ops. The publisher cited statistics from Microsoft that the average player logs on to the game more than once a day, with each session lasting more than an hour. Additionally, more than half of that play time, on average, is spent in the game's online modes.

For more on Black Ops, check out GameSpot's review.