The massively popular Call of Duty franchise has been around for a long while, and the series has reached lifetime sales that are only topped two of gaming’s other timeless juggernauts. Although it remains in the shadow of those game franchises, Call of Duty’s in incredibly good company.
Call of Duty’s success is made even more impressive when considering the fact that the franchise is relatively “new” in the grand scheme of things, with the original game having released in 2003. The series has since ballooned into a household name unlike almost any other gaming IP, and it’s reached this coveted vantage in a remarkably short 16 years. Always changing to follow trends and set them, the evolving Call of Duty franchise has variably pushed the envelope in terms of what it means to be a first-person shooter, and publisher Activision Blizzard is reasonably proud of the series’ latest milestone.
In Activision Blizzard’s first quarter investor call of 2019 earlier this week, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick confirmed to shareholders that Call of Duty’s total sales figures are now only third behind Mario and Pokémon. As transcribed by Seeking Alpha, Kotick relayed that Call of Duty is “one of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time,” remarking that the franchise has achieved a considerable “cumulative sales exceeding 300 million games” in its lifetime. Even among a stony group of ultra-wealthy business people who frequently push the company to take cold measures (to say Kotick was in good company would be an understatement), it’s hard to imagine that this energizing statement didn’t rouse at least some of them.
If any more proof was needed that Call of Duty is still a mega success in the world of gaming, joining the likes of Pokémon and Mario should be the last word on the matter. And like Nintendo’s flagship franchises, Call of Duty shows no sign of slowing down in its ambition to push even more units and reach even more players, with the next unnamed game in the series already existing in a playable state. It’s rumored to be the next sequel in the long dormant Modern Warfare trilogy, but, even so, it’s not slowing down support for the battle royale-centric Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
Franchises come and go, but sixteen years and nearly as many releases point to the staying power of Call of Duty. It’s doubtful that the shooter series can ever surpass the lifetime sales of Nintendo’s two most widely appealing IPs, but that won’t stop Call of Duty’s passionate development teams and voracious publisher from trying.
Next: Every Single Call of Duty Game, Ranked
Source: Seeking Alpha
