Call of Duty Ghosts has already beaten GTA 5’s sales records, making $ 1 billion in retail sales on day one, as confirmed by Activision via press release.
In the same press release, Bobby Kotick cites high numbers attained by previous games as signs of the franchise’s growing, enduring popularity. Activision has tracked over four billion hours of gameplay for the franchise in general. Black Ops 2 has made more revenue in the last 12 months than any other console game has in a year.
Expectations are also high for Ghosts now that Activision has seen early Xbox Live data. It is already the most popular game on Xbox Live, and that gameplay sessions for Ghosts are now longer than they were for Black Ops 2 or Modern Warfare 3, when you compare the same time frame for each.
In comparison, GTA 5 made $ 800 million in retail in first day sales. Rockstar noted that this was the highest launch sales numbers they had ever seen for Grand Theft Auto, and of course, for any of Rockstar’s games.
Both GTA 5 and COD Ghosts are suffering highly critical reviews and suffer from concerns with bugs and issues with online play. However, it’s clear that franchise loyalty has one out for both, as these highly anticipated sequels are seeing exponentially higher numbers, and motivation to keep the two series going.
It’s precisely this financial success that is motivating game developers to keep making sequels, and subsequently disincentivizing them from making new IPs. Why we welcome these successes in the industry, we also wonder if gaming companies and their investors are going to continue to interpret this information to fit these prevailing narratives.
