14 DAY TRIAL // Even with the PC market bent over a wooden horse and padded with a spiked lash, everyone knew that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was going to make more money than most countries sweat and toil for in months. Still, ideas like “big” and “huge” are never enough to make an impact. Vague concepts remain just that and, even if everyone understands their meaning, one doesn't really feel their weight. But numbers do that, and, if you really want to understand what Modern Warfare 2 is expected to be like, you just have to look at the numbers.
Activision shipped, for the United Kingdom alone, three million copies. Batman: Arkham Asylum was a critically acclaimed game, loved by everyone, and has only sold 2.5 million copies in the entire world. The scariest thing is that this doesn't seem to be just Activision bravado, beating its chest and being overconfident in the game. Grand Theft Auto 4 was the latest shattering hit that sold 631,000 units in its first day, amounting to £27.2 million or $45.0 million in value. Well, Modern Warfare 2 has already managed to sell 1.23 million copies in its first day, proving that Activision knows what it is doing as a publisher. The MW2 sales are almost twice those of GTA IV, piling up to an impressive £47 million or $77.8 million.
[UPDATE] If you think that was big, wait until you hear the "internal Activision estimates." According to these figures, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 had "the biggest launch in history across all forms of entertainment". The game reports sales of $310 million in 24 hours, in the North America and UK. Crunch some number, cut some corners and you come out with somewhere around five million copies sold.
The Director General of the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association, or ELSPA, Michael Rawlinson, saw this as an opportunity to promote the PEGI-based rating system that replaced the BBFC one earlier this year. "These first day sales figures are astonishing and clear evidence that video games are now mainstream in the UK," he said. "Our form of interactive entertainment has completely come of age. Just like some movies and books, this is specifically intended for an adult audience and accordingly has emotional, adult content."
Still, big day-one sales don't tell a lot about the quality of a game. The first days of sales can be attributed solely to advertisement and the suits down at marketing, as the gamers haven't actually managed to get their hands on the title and see what it's really about. No matter what reviewers say, or how much they praised or stoned a title, it's what's spread by word-of-mouth that represents its quality the best. If the game continues to sell at this pace, only then can we say that Modern Warfare 2 is a good one. Or when we finish the campaign ourselves and have spent a few hours in multiplayer, but, by then, it would be too late to not have purchased the game.