After making over $500 million in the first 24 hours of release, Activision has revealed that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has now crossed the $1 billion mark after just 15 days on the market. To put this number in perspective, Modern Warfare 3 took 16 days to reach $1 billion, with the Avatar movie taking 17 days.
In possibly the most humble-braggiest statement in a while, Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, had this to say about the mega franchise:
The release of Call of Duty has been one of the most significant entertainment events of each of the last six years. Since Call of Duty was launched, cumulative franchise revenues from players around the world are greater than current worldwide box office receipts to date for the top-10 grossing films of 2012 combined. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded worldwide theatrical box office receipts for ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Star Wars,’ the two most successful movie franchises of all time.
Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, also commented on this milestone:
Entertainment franchises that captivate audiences for as long as Call of Duty has, on the scale that Call of Duty has, are very rare things. And it takes a lot of brilliant people working across many different disciplines to make it happen. It is incredibly humbling and gratifying to be a part of. In order for Call of Duty to remain the entertainment juggernaut that it is, and keep our fans coming back for more, we need to continue to bring fresh ideas and new innovations to the table every time, while always staying true to what people fell in love with in the first place. That’s what we did with Call of Duty: Black Ops II, and that’s what we intend to keep on doing. This is an incredible milestone for an incredible franchise, and I want to thank every passionate, talented, committed person on our team who made it happen.
As for online multiplayer numbers, more than 150 million hours have been played over Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. Specific kill totals weren’t revealed, but we can make a wild guess and say it’s a lot.
Did you help the game reach that $1 billion? Let us know in the comments below.
