Modern Warfare 2 Hits $2B… What Have We Learned?

Love or hate the series, there’s little denying that Infinity Ward has done right with Call of Duty. Each major addition to the series has sold really, really well, and with the latest iteration, Modern Warfare 2, the company hit an incredible feat… it’s sold over $1 billion worth of product. It can be assumed that this number counts for things other than the game as well, such as official strategy guides and other related product.

The interesting thing, I find, is that Modern Warfare 2 has been filled with various forms of controversy since its launch, yet it still managed to hit such a staggering number of sales. Ars Technica takes a look at this very thing, and looks back to find out what we can learn, or have learned, from the fact that despite the downs, Modern Warfare 2 still managed to fill the company’s pockets.

One point mentioned here, and one I agree with, is that “PC gaming doesn’t matter”. It’s hugely unfortunate, but the gamers have spoken, with the vast majority of the sales belonging to the console versions (which still blows me away, since I could never imagine actually preferring an FPS with a gamepad). As mentioned in our news before the launch, PC gamers were getting shafted, and it looks like it didn’t matter. Those who were miffed with the issues with the PC version didn’t care enough about the cause to refuse a purchase, so… we can’t exactly expect much of an improvement in the future.

The other points mentioned here is that pricing matters, and also that the gaming press can be shoved around. The only way sites could publish a launch review was to go to straight to Activision to play the game under close watch. This even broke the policies of some websites, yet they went anyway. That’s the equivalent of giving someone a talk show, and then taking it back seven months later!

The majority of gamers will experience the game on consoles, and PC gamers don’t need things like a console for tweaking the game or support for mods. Infinity Ward and Activision locked down the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 to make sure it was played how and when they want. New content is coming for the game, buts let’s hope that the Microsoft exclusivity doesn’t extend to the PC.