Don't believe all analysts!

Call of Duty Sales Slown Down!

Call of Duty's longterm sales effect may be diminishing

I am a business analyst myself and after reading those articles I can only conclude one thing: Probably none of the analysts mentioned in those articles have played a call of duty game. Because if they would have played any of those games they would have realized they are comparing apples with oranges and furthermore they are judging based on the wrong figures.

First of, don't compare MW3 with MW2, BO or WAW, because these games worked on a total different business model.

MW2, BO and WAW operated on the business model of releasing a disked game followed by some DLC map packs. Each release of map packs acts also as a potential for selling addittional disks for those players who did not buy the game at release.

MW3 operated by a premium content principle plus disk sales. Players who become premium elite members receive DLC mappacks for free (released at regular interval) while none elite players can buy complete DLC mappacks afterwards at a higher price.

(Note to business analysts: compare Premium Elite Memberships sales at MW3 launch vs MW2 DLC map pack sales/ BO map pack sales, might reveal whether the concept of premium elite is successfull)

Second, the used games sales are probably bigger now (given the economy) then compared to MW2/BO/WAW. I don't know whether these are included in your sales figures (I doubt it).

If you really want to know whether MW3 is more or less successful, you'll have to knock on Activisions door and ask this simple request:

"Provide me with a count of active players per month per iteration of COD."

Then match the individual games by months after release. Does MW3 has fewer active players 6 months after release then any other COD game? Yes, then you can say the game franchise is declining? No, then its probably flourishing.

If you want to analyse MW3 in further detail, you could ask a couple of these questions:

1. how many players have previous versions of COD?

2. how many players had a previous version but did not buy MW3?

3. how many MW3 players are premium elite members?

The answers to these questions will provide a far better picture of the franchise then some sales figures. I am sure activisions analysts have already looked at those figures and the outcome certainly will decide whether we will see a MW4 or BO2.