After staying on top of the UK retail charts for 41 weeks, Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has earned the distinction of being the best-selling retail game "ever" in the United Kingdom. The game took down the previous record holder, Brain Training.
According to retail tracking data from Gfk Chart-Track, Modern Warfare 2 managed to stay in top ten for 38 out of 41 weeks - falling below that threshold last week. It probably didn't hurt the bottom line when the game moved 1.23 million copies on the day of release and brought in around £47 million ($77.85 million) for Activision in the UK; in the U.S. the game grossed around $550 million in its first five days of release.
A pretty impressive accomplishment for Activision and Infinity Ward, though most of the people that worked on it no longer work at the wholly-owned Activision studio. Let's see if the new IW is capable of filling the shoes worn by the founding members of Respawn Entertainment.
Comments
Re: Best Selling UK Game Ever: Modern Warfare 2
Sad. We knew that marketing alone could make a turd of a game sell well, especially on consoles. Now we know that marketing can make an enormous turd become the biggest selling game ever.
I weep for the gamers.
Re: Best Selling UK Game Ever: Modern Warfare 2
Agree 100%. I saw this and had to comment, but you've taken the words right out of my mouth. It just goes to show that if a publisher combines massive hype with millions of sheep (sorry, I mean 'players'), the result is not only a bestseller, but THE bestseller.
I feel sad that this probably means that game development budgets will be cut while marketing budgets will skyrocket. And all the sheep will eat up whatever crap the publisher shits out.
It's pathetic!