Black Ops 2 Begins Race for $1B Revenue Target
Expectations run high for the latest Call of Duty game franchise, the Black Ops 2, according to analysts, because previous releases of the Activision pedigree had delivered hundreds of millions in revenues within 24 hours of reaching global store shelves.
This new CoD title will be monitored closely with watchers excited to witness how quick it would eclipse the records that were previously set by rivals, foremost of which are the new game's Activision siblings - the first Black Ops and the Modern Warfare 3.
The two games, according to Agence France Presse (AFP), wrote history in the gaming industry with the latter racking up more than $1 billion in revenues after only 16 days of commercial availability.
Black Ops 1, on the other hand, eventually lured 13.7 million buys in the U.S. market alone, earning the title the distinction as "one of the best-selling console games of all time," CNN said on Tuesday.
Even competitions outside of the CoD stable are doing relatively great in an industry that analysts said is encountering major struggles in the past few years due largely to the fast-changing landscape of the tech world.
Halo 4, exclusively playable on Xbox 360, raked in global sales that reached $US220 million after only its first day of release, based on reports provided by Microsoft, again setting a higher benchmark for the Black Ops 2 to surpass or at least equal.
The title, however, is not projected to flop as The Sun reported on Monday that thousands were lining up in Britain for the frenzied race to get copies of the newest CoD game instalment.
On the other side of the Atlantic, CNET cited an informal IGN survey, which showed that "26 per cent of respondents planned to skip work or school (on Tuesday, launch date for the new CoD game) to play Black Ops 2."
It is fair to forecast then, media reports said, that the new Activision offering would also write down $1 billon and more next to its revenue column and the only question is when or how soon it would come about.
Gaming experts and market watchers are in agreement that Black Ops 2 has the right ingredients to become global blockbuster in the gaming world.
Gamers seek the CoD gaming environment for its online offering, which reportedly attracts tens of millions to log on the network each month.
It also boasts of a compelling narrative that essentially is a play up of the tension between the United States and China, which in the CoD universe are waging their version of Cold War fast-forward in 2025.
That storyline prompted Mark Lamia, head of Activision's game developer Treyarch Studios, to employ the services of Peter Singer to "imagine and design a world not too unlike the present day."
In creating the 'futuristic world' that gamers will see in Black Ops 2, "we focused on everything from technical trends, the emergence of robotics, some of the greater attention to warfare, and then also political trends," Mr Singer told CNN.
His works resulted to the inclusion of popular figures in the Black Ops 2 realm with the likes of former Panama strongman Manuel Noriega, former U.S. army colonel Oliver North, outgoing U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton and recently resigned CIA director David Petraeus appearing in cameo roles.
"Our fictional world of 2025 is the result of news headlines you see today," Mr Lamia told AFP, adding that Treyarch developers took two year to weave together the plots, subplots and weaponries for mayhems that will play out on the new Black Ops storyline.
The latest zombie craze is also in the game as Treyarch retained the survival mode that became a hit with CoD gamers, likely leading the title's run to the $1 billon tape-line at the quickest possible time.