So You Don’t think Call of Duty is Popular Anymore? I guess you REALLY don’t know ANYTHING!

   According to Gamespot, they just posted a recent news article stating that according to Amazon UK and US,

“Preorders from Day 1 of Black Ops II were more than 10 times the amount of preorders for the first Black Ops on its first day of availability. Black Ops II even out preordered the first day of availability for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 by more than 30 percent. Modern Warfare 3 currently holds the record for the most preordered game of all time and was amongst the top 20 preorders ever on Amazon.com, including books and movies”

      This comes just days after the announcement of the existence of the game and a trailer showing the new futuristic features the game will have.  Most of the press that were at the recent event held for the announcement were very impressed with the new story driven gameplay that the new COD BLOPS 2 will be featuring.  There was no mention of multiplayer however, except to say that the game will feature the futuristic time period for it’s multiplayer and the survival based zombie mode will be returning.  I’m sure all the old folks are hoping Oliver North is in the Zombie mode as an unlockable character; but this number of pre-orders can only be seen as unprecedented.  Especially considering Amazon even stated that the numbers are greater than those for MW3 which was at the height of the console cycle thereby having the highest installbase to participate.

     While these are JUST pre-orders and most outlets, even Amazon, don’t require up front payment.  To say that this “new take.” On Call of Duty is just what the doctor ordered for an ailing industry that has believed over the course of the last six months that nothing could get into the same league as MW3 and Black Ops.  Apparently all we needed was another Call of Duty.  I think this shows one VERY IMPORTANT THING and that is that there is plenty of money and interest out there.  You just have to make a game everyone is interested in playing and market the game properly.

      The Day after the trailer aired all I saw on weekly gaming shows or heard about on everyone’s website was about the new Call of Duty and what it would feature.  Other game companies could learn from this.  Having a message hit all at once; first on television and then on the internet; makes a much bigger impression than just one or the other.  And while God of War Ascension tried to do this a few days before this announcement.  It would have been much more interesting had they shown at least a little of the single player and not worried about the multiplayer quite so long before the game was actually going to come out.

      As any PR department will tell you; video game advertising is hard.  That’s why it’s best to use history to dictate your decisions about the future.  It seems like Activision has been paying attention.  Sony on the other hand… Well, I guess if this whole electronics thing doesn’t work out there is an probably some more growth in the collectible card market.