back to article Activision leaps into Modern Warfare 2 sales figure fight

The publisher of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has waded into the conflict surrounding the game’s day-one sales, claiming that 4.2m copies of the videogame were shifted within 24 hours. The title notched up “sell-though sales” of $130m in the UK and North America combined during its first 24 hours of availability, according …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Higher sales due to supermarkets

    The £26/£25.99 supermarket price war must have helped a lot otherwise I wouldn't have bought a copy.

    Plus the fact people were buying more than one copy to sell on/trade on etc!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hmm, popular game

    + pricing war = good sales.

    Who'd have thunk it. Most places were selling it for half price to get people through the doors

  3. Alex Walsh

    I doubt there will be many sore thumbs...

    ... the single player campaign isn't long enough to cause discomfort!

  4. Sir Runcible Spoon

    "Apart from some who ordered their game from Play.com"

    You pays yer money yer takes yer choice. It's cheaper for a reason :)

  5. Paul_Murphy

    What about the returns - do they count?

    When people find out:

    PC version has no 'lean' function due to the dumbing down for the consoles,

    Max 9vs9 in multiplayer mode, compared with over 20vs20 on other games,

    No PC dedicated server so people can run the game at a LAN,

    That's when my interest in the game ran out.

    So, will the returns count as sales still I wonder?

    ttfn

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    must have sold a lot

    because my 13 year-old son informs me that all except one of his friends got a copy on the first day so why won't we buy it for him. Cue discussion on 18 certificate and much shouting and screaming in response.

  7. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
    FAIL

    Pointless bunch of windbags...

    "Oh look at my biased sales research..." says vested interest number 1.

    "No, my pointless guesswork is more accurate than yours..." says company number 2.

    "Stop the windbagging and wait until the finance figures come in you pointless posturing windbags" says I.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    @Chris Anderson

    Stick that in your long tail pipe and smoke it.

  9. Aortic Aneurysm

    @AC - must have sold alot.

    It's an 18 certificate, but the game offers you the option to skip levels that might cause offence, so make sure you play it first and choose to skip, as it remembers your first answer.

  10. Scott Broukell
    Black Helicopters

    Baaaah ....

    ... still playing Half Life (Blue Shift) the whole way through with just the crowbar here.

    [Copters cos the damn things keep flying in with more and more grunts]

  11. Martin Nicholls
    Stop

    Skippig/Cert

    "so make sure you play it first and choose to skip, as it remembers your first answer"

    And you can change it whenever you like. Least on the PC, dunno why not on console too.

    I'd say let your 13 yo play it because it's an extremely intelligent and plausable story, much better for your kids brain that guitar hero or wii sports.

    Been playing violent games all my life and never did me any harm, quite the opposite.

  12. Tom 15

    @Paul_Murphy

    PC version has no 'lean' function due to the dumbing down for the consoles

    No one uses lean anyway... they could easily incorporate lean into consoles if they wanted to.

    Max 9vs9 in multiplayer mode, compared with over 20vs20 on other games.

    I've never played a good game of COD4 with more than 8 or so per team. People only play more players to XP whore.

    No PC dedicated server so people can run the game at a LAN.

    Whilst no LAN is slightly annoying, it is true that 90% of LAN games are using pirated copies. if you have real copies there's no reason it won't seem like an authentic LAN?

  13. jeffrey 1
    Grenade

    Personally

    One of the main factors in me buying it was the £25.99 price, and the fact that I have recently completed Resistance 2 and Rainbow Six vegas 2 so I was at a bit of a loose end. if it had even been approaching rrp I wouldn't have bothered.

    @Anonymous Coward Posted Friday 13th November 2009 11:30 GMT

    Nice to see a parent with some sense, and a little intrest/knowledge about what their children are up to / want to be up to.

    Whilst I was queuing at the supermarket there were at least 4 spotty chavs getting turned away for not having real ID to prove thier ages. But the funniest sight i saw, was a kid in a primary school uniform, with his grandmother, trying to buy it. The nan said "go on hand over your pocket money", and the sales assistant said "I'm not selling you this game, do you know what it contains, are you aware of it's 18 rated certificate?", the nan was very shocked when she ound out about the airport scene and asked why they market these games at small children when they are clearly unsuitable. made me laugh anyway

  14. Paul_Murphy
    Paris Hilton

    @Tom 15

    >No one uses lean anyway... they could easily incorporate lean into consoles if they wanted to.

    Would be nice to have the choice,

    >I've never played a good game of COD4 with more than 8 or so per team. People only play more players to XP whore.

    I would say that you can have very good games with 40 or more people (I have on the previous versions to this; CoD:WaW) on many occasions and, again, it would be nice to choose, rather than such an arbitary limit being imposed.

    >Whilst no LAN is slightly annoying,

    Umm ok.... see my last response

    >it is true that 90% of LAN games are using pirated copies.

    I would challenge that since it's certainly not the case in my experience. The few occasions when someone at a LAN I have been to has not had the game someone would lend them their disk for that session only.

    It is also a very good way of advertising games to those people that may not have bought them, or wanted to try them before buying.

    In the past some games would allow many copies to be played from one master disk on a network, I'm sure it got many more copies of the game sold than enforcing the need for a disk in each computer.

    >if you have real copies there's no reason it won't seem like an authentic LAN?

    The only way that people can play this game at a LAN is for there to be an internet connection so that everyone can get authenticated on an internet machine. For a LAN of, say, 50 people sharing a 2Mb connection it means everyone will be running very slowly.

    It also means that the publisher can start charging for access to internet servers.

    ttfn

    PH - cos she like bending over and taking it as well.

  15. OFI
    Grenade

    PC Whinging

    @ Paul Murphy

    According to So&So Stats Inc the PC version only sold 20 copies so nobody cares ;-)

    Why fuss over PC versions when the console version makes more money and sells far far more copies. PC version just gets pirated..

    I do kind of feel sorry for the younger teens. They may have played the previous games which carried a lower rating so having a sequel come along with a higher rating does see a little unfair.

    @Aortic Aneurysm

    All that does is skip the contreversal Airport scene. It does not make the game the equivilent of a lower rating.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    I'd like to know

    what the PC sales figures are for this, because the vast majority of PC gamers I know are boycotting this pile of shit because it has no dedicated server functionality and is basically just a shite console port. Multiplayer is a big steaming pile of lag.

    What a way to shaft the people who made the COD series popular. Infinity Ward won't be getting another penny of mine.

  17. Cheeky Chappie
    Unhappy

    MW2? No thanks

    I canceled my pre-order as soon as I found out that there were no dedicated servers which is shame as I was really looking forward to it. I've ordered HOMEFRONT instead, I believe it's due out in March

  18. Eradicate all BB entrants
    Thumb Down

    @registerfail

    It is still an offense to sell a BBFC age restricted film/game to an adult if you know they intend to give it to the child. Ask the store manager if he prefers losing a £40 sale or having to pay a £5000 fine and have the assistant spend 6 months at her majesties pleasure?

    In my retail days (Video and Games) I refused loads of adults when their ten year old wandered upto them with and 18 item and asked their parent to get it for them.

    The store assistant did exactly the right thing. But at least now we know when we see a spoiled little git that deserves a good slap as much as his parents do there is a good chance you are the parent......moron

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Boycotting?

    I'm intrigued as to why people are claiming that not buying a game that they don't want (because it lacks features they want) is boycotting it. Surely its just not buying it, the same way that I don't buy lots of games that I don't want to play.

  20. Machines
    Grenade

    Availability

    My missus picked up a copy from Sainsburys in West Brom on Wednesday, a few others were there for the same thing. 'Out of stock' sign on the shelf but a load of them in the back.

    Single player is very fast paced and you do feel rushed through every level, but it's still good fun. I'll be completing it tonight I expect, then it's Veteran mode and multiplayer time.

  21. jeffrey 1
    Thumb Up

    @RegisterFail

    She could only have bought it at the moment due to a technicality in the VRA making it unenforceable. Soon the act will be ammended , normal service will be resumed, and it will be £5K fines all round if she did. Besides setting the parental controls on the ps3 version she was trying to buy it for would just make the game not load at all. The member of staff explained the product, the nan agreed it was unsuitable wheres the problem with that?

  22. John Stirling

    @RegisterFail

    No, that would be a competent store person, who shouldn't be sacked.

    You seem to be arguing that a grandmother isn't equipped to make an informed decision, and the store clerk should unilaterally decide that a person younger than the rating should be allowed to own the game. Or are you suggesting that the store clerk should conclude that the grandmother would be playing the game because she handed over the cash, after saying 'give the man your pocket money?

    I'm guessing you feel this way because it affects you personally?

    I'm in favour of enforcing such limitations, rather than having mature content banned, which was firmly the bandwagon prior to the introduction of age limitations on games. Just ignoring the limits through technicalities (my gran bought it) will bring back that bandwagon. Not that it ever entirely left...

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    18 Rating

    The 18 rating is there because its been legally deemed that the game contains violence, that should be for only adults. Even without the 'airport scene' I don't think that the game would be much less violent, just less controversial.

    Overall, the comments about how you can disable certain things, enable family ratings etc, are pointless. Unless a parent is pretty up to speed on how a console works, its damned likely that the kid will know more about it, or even more likely, know the passcode anyway so these settings are pointless.

    @RegisterFail, the sales assistant who refused to sell it to the grandmother when it was clearly for the child was perfectly within his legal rights, and the store manager and entire company would have stood behind him in this situation, otherwise why would the bother making it policy to check for ID for 18 classified items?

    Although, you are correct the grandmother should have looked at the game, check if she was happy for her grandson to play such a game and look through the family settings etc, but this is her job, not the sales assistants job.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @OFI

    Ah, so it's good business sense to shaft your formerly loyal customer base to make a load of money, when you could have kept them onside and made even more money?

    For your information, the PC version doesn't "just get pirated", because if you'd bothered to check your facts, you'd know that the PC version has to be validated via Steam.

    Still, don't let facts get in the way of a good troll.

  25. Tom 11
    Grenade

    single player bashers

    Turn it up to a proper level of difficulty you pussy! people finishing the single player campaign are on easy or modderate, notch it up to Hardened or Veteran and the game has a completely different pace, there is no *possible* way to play through on those settings, charging is not an option, and shots are all it takes to down you.

  26. OFI
    FAIL

    @ AC

    Make more money? You think the extra development costs involved to make all the changes to keep your small user base happy are free?

    Bother to check my facts? lol, Steam version was hacked days ago, possibly even release day actually..

    Since when has Steam stopped anyone from pirating?

  27. Aortic Aneurysm

    @RegisterFail

    I was going toc omment how you were wrong, but I see it's been covered already

  28. Aortic Aneurysm

    @RegisterFail... again

    "No, it's an urban legend that a store can't sell to a guardian of a kid, if you think otherwise feel free to point out where in law this is actually outlined, because you wont find it."

    Having worked in a Supermarket for 5 years, I can confirm that the cashier was right in refusing the sale. Had the Granny been on her own and trying to buy it, there is no reason to refuse her, but because the cashier seen the granny and child trying to buy a 18 rated, age restricted product, then she knows the game is for the child.

    If she sells the game to the gran, its the same as selling alcohol to someone who is going to upply it to persons underage.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Aortic Aneurysm

    But it's legal for children as young as 5 to drink in private.

    So if the supply of alcohol is for consumption on private premises then it is legal for an adult to buy it for a child/teenager

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