More than $10 billion’s worth of Call of Duty sold

Call of Duty: Advanced warfare is out, and is a pretty decent game. Or at least, it would be if it wasn’t bloody broken. Analysts have said that it wouldn’t reach Ghosts sales, while Activision’s said that’s doing rather well. In its first week, Advanced Warfare was, according to Activision, outselling Ghosts. I think though, that all the reports of lag and broken multiplayer may have cut off its tail. In a new press release, Activision has detailed how well the series has sold as a whole, obfuscating  Advanced Warfare’s actual sales.

“Since Activision created the Call of Duty franchise in 2003, franchise revenues have exceeded $10 billion in sales worldwide, far exceeding box office receipts for such household movie franchises as Hunger Games, Transformers, Iron Man and Avengers, combined,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard. “Advanced Warfare is the biggest entertainment launch of 2014 in terms of revenue, surpassing all movie, music and book launches this year.”

“We poured our hearts into making Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare an epic ride, and we are pleased with the performance,” said CEO of Activision publishing, Eric Hirshberg “Sales and engagement are up through the first week compared to last year. Season Pass sales are up, as well. The game has been very positively reviewed and the response from fans has been tremendous. We believe Advanced Warfare will be the most successful game of the year and we thank our fans for making it the biggest entertainment launch of the year.”

The series has now gone on to sell over $10 billion US dollars worth, across all platform and all games.

If Advanced Warfare was indeed performing better at retail, or even digitally, I’m pretty sure Activision would be shouting about it from every digital rooftop.  Instead, we get a wishy-washy, vague release detailing how well the series as a whole is doing. In the same release, Activision confirmed that “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is the highest-selling digital launch in console history according to Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and internal Activision estimates,” which all sounds impressive, but it’s to be expected as it’s the first Call of Duty to be available digitally Day 1 on both Xbox 1 and PlayStation 4 after the release of those systems.

Analysts have long said that Call of Duty is in an overall decline, and I’m inclined to believe them.

Last Updated: November 21, 2014