Black Ops sales top $1 billion

By Fred Dutton Published 21 December, 2010

COD rewrites "the rules of entertainment".

Call of Duty: Black Ops has now netted more than $1 billion in sales since its November launch, publisher Activision has confirmed.

That makes it the fastest grossing videogame of all time, according to CEO Bobby Kotick.

"In all of entertainment, only Call of Duty and Avatar have ever achieved the billion dollar revenue milestone this quickly," he claimed.

As we found out last month, $650 million of that total came in the game's first five days on sale.

"Call of Duty continues to rewrite not just the record books, but also the rules of interactive entertainment," insisted Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing.

"Even more remarkable than the number of units sold is the number of hours people are playing the game together online which are unprecedented. Call of Duty is more than a game, it's a true community."

Activision claims that 600 million hours have now been logged playing the Treyarch-developed shooter.

According to Microsoft stats, the average Xbox 360 player logs on more than once a day and plays for more than one hour each time. Over half of all game time is spent playing online with and against friends.

Black Ops won a very respectable 8/10 from Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell earlier this year, but that's not the reason it's done so well. No, according to Kotick, it's all down to you guys.

"This extraordinary milestone was achieved because of the tens of millions of passionate Call of Duty players around the world," he insisted. "Global audiences have logged billions of hours online with Call of Duty games on Xbox Live, the PlayStation Network and on personal computers.

"This unique level of community engagement has enabled Call of Duty to become one of the world's most engaged online communities."

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Emmit_Assassin #1 1 year ago

    Even more surprising than that, is the fact that I'm still playing it. I got bored of MW in four weeks, MW2 in three weeks, Halo:Reach in one week, but this is still going strong. And I have no idea why I like this one more than the others.

  • Bonders99 #2 1 year ago

    Chavtastic news indeed

  • hiddenranbir #3 1 year ago

    As long as it keeps them off the street.

  • Stop-gap #4 1 year ago

    /Dr Evil voice "A Billion Dollars"

    This is the first time I've found CoD impressive, but it's for all the wrong reasons. I thought these things were meant to have suffered diminishing returns by now or something?

  • SeesThroughAll #5 1 year ago

    Modern Warfare truly is the Facebook of shooters.

  • kalinichenko #6 1 year ago

    apart from having dumb teammates,the single player campaign is much better than i expected.

  • sfp_noodle #7 1 year ago

    So according to Kotick, re-writing entertainment involves laggy servers, erased stats, unexpected boots mid-way through games, ages spent searching for games online and re-skins lasting in excess of 5+ years? I fear for the future of our beloved industry.

  • Psiloc #8 1 year ago

    Man, this is depressing.

  • CaptainQuint #9 1 year ago

    After Black Ops, I will never buy a CoD game again. I hate everything the franchise has come to represent about the game industry, it depresses me.

  • Ikaros_O #10 1 year ago

    Didn't enjoy it to be honest. Just following a guy down a corridor is virtually what the campaign is. Whilst the multi annoyed me because of all the perks and killstreaks, doesn't deserve to be the best selling video game imo.

  • butler` #11 1 year ago

    I wonder how much Kotick's bonus will be this year.

  • dfua #12 1 year ago

    If the 18 rating on the box was strictly adhered to I doubt sales would be half that.

  • Lexx87 #13 1 year ago

    Quint you only had to buy 6 COD games to come to that conclusion! :p

  • JJrabbit #14 1 year ago

    Sigh. With news like this, suits from other companies will think it's okay to rehash the same thing over and over again (moreso than usual). Not to take anything away from the game, it's fun, but nothing outstanding. I hope one day an original IP sees success like this.

  • subedii #15 1 year ago

    @Scotty269:

    A person may dislike something regardless of whether they're good or not at it.

    Although frankly, my dislike of the franchise pretty much stems from the singleplayer. This isn't new mind you, I've had that issue with it since the first game, but it seems like with each iteration they take things further and further out of the player's hands. The game doesn't really give the player any control or agency beyond the headshotting.

    Once you feel as if you're not really the instigator of any of the events actually happening on-screen, it's all completely scripted, it's hard to be involved in the proceedings, you very literally are just watching cutscenes as they play through. You're TOLD that these are thrilling events and that you should be thrilled by them, but if the extent of my interaction and effect on them is "shoot or don't shoot" then it's hard for me to care about what's happening.

    Even Halo manages to give the player more tactical choice when it comes to the combat, and makes me feel more involved when playing it because even in its combat bubbles, there's enough options to allow for different things to happen. In general however, I dislike the formula espoused by CoD and the way that other franchises are increasingly trying to mimic it, only worse. Travelling down linear corridor after linear corridor, punctuated by cutscenes as you pass trigger points for scripted sequences, it doesn't really do much for me.

    I guess you could sum it up as a case of games trying to be doggedly, almost mindlessly cinematic to the extent that they sacrifice all player agency in the process. The only time something different happens in-game is the fail state, when you don't hit your already-pre-selected mark. And when it gets to that, even if that set-piece looks nice, my mind's stuck in idle mode and simply doesn't care because I know nothing I do can effect what I'm seeing in even the most rudimentary fashion.
    Edited by subedii at 21/12/10 @ 20:32

  • des #16 1 year ago

    uh oh,EA won't like this

  • X3Entente #17 1 year ago

    what was that, oh sorry too busy playing css zombie escape

  • clockworkzombie #18 1 year ago

    This is an excellent game. Fixing the PS3 problems will stop most of the complaints. The maps are great, awaiting the next map pack. I hope the maps are as good as the map packs in World at War as they were superb.

  • tobsen #19 1 year ago

    Activision claims that 600 million hours have now been logged playing the Treyarch-developed shooter.

    What a dreadful and senseless waste of human life.

  • chrisola #20 1 year ago

    "What a dreadful and senseless waste of human life. "

    HOLY SHIT, THE GAME IS EXACTLY LIKE REAL WAR!!!

  • jtodroc #21 1 year ago

    I don't think I've ever seen Scotty269 post a comment that doesn't end up getting a shit-load of negs.

  • Ryboy #22 1 year ago

    You're a cunt Kotick, a fucking cunt.

    *Starts playing Black Ops*

    You hear me? A fucking CUNT!

  • CaptainQuint #23 1 year ago

    @Lexx87

    Jestful point taken, but I'm one of those who really enjoyed World at War. I dunno; I guess I thought Treyarch might have their own creative voice after all, but no. They do as they're told. They really ARE hacks, it's true.

  • aphex187 #24 1 year ago

    Let's hope the next one makes these c**** a grand.....

  • metalangel #25 1 year ago

    Black Ops won a very respectable 8/10 from Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell earlier this year, but that's not the reason it's done so well. No, according to Kotick, it's all down to you guys.

    "This extraordinary milestone was achieved because of the tens of millions of passionate Call of Duty players around the world," he insisted.

    A consumer product successful because lots of consumers bought it? NO FUCKING KIDDING. In other news, Bobby Kotick reportedly was no longer hungry. Industry analyst Michael Pachter, paid thousands upon thousands of dollars to investigate this trend, concluded: "He must have eaten a lot of food."

  • Quixz #26 1 year ago

    So the game has made a crazy amount of money, are Treyarch going to be paid?

  • ichobi #27 1 year ago

    In 5 months, Eurogamer headline reads: "Treyarch lead developers in major dispute with Activision, off to form a new game studio aptly named Despawn.

    COD has always led you by the nose since its first iteration, and it got really bad since COD3 and MW. If you take COD as some sort of playable movies you might enjoy them more like I do. Just don't expect anything 'tactical'. That kind of things just aren't COD. You know it's all about scripted events, lots of them, big lame explosions and totally forseeable plot twist. Kind of like hollywood action movies. Enjoy it for what it is, it can be an overnight blast. Ask of it more than that and you are in for a bucket of disappointment. Oh and this comment is for SP campaign mode only.

  • CaptainQuint #28 1 year ago

    Well, there's nowt much tactical about the multiplayer either, tbh. Not unless you count lapping the map in search of something to shoot at.

  • awb83 #29 1 year ago

    This wasn't as good as mw1

  • Dave52 #30 1 year ago

    Probably about time the mainstream media started treating games with the same column inches as movies...

  • vaughan42 #31 1 year ago

    Wow, people really really like shooting each other.

  • geeza2020 #32 1 year ago

    If only ICO had sold like this :(

  • Paulie_P #33 1 year ago

    I think I am actually going to cry.

    'I've said it before people. Democracy simply doesn't work.' - Kent Brockman

  • bonker #34 1 year ago

    COD = FIFA with guns ...

    I stopped after COD2 (still to be bettered IMO).