In only six weeks, the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops has created an enormous amount of military video gamers and generated more than $1 billion in sales for maker Activision Publications. The game has also set online user records that show how it has quickly become a leading global entertainment phenomenon.
Since the game debuted during November, sales and other indicators such as social media awareness and online playing time show that Call of Duty: Black Ops point to a dedicated community of players. The total number for Call of Duty: Black Ops is more than the populations of countries like Belgium, Austria, Chile, Ireland, Greece, Sweden, The Netherlands and Portugal, suggested a worldwide audience of devoted players.
The total number of players registered for Call of Duty: Black Ops exceeds the combined U.S. audiences for Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel and Craig Ferguson for the whole week of Dec. 6, 2010, according to a release from Activision Publishing.
It is also larger than the number of people who watched the series finale of the hit television show “Lost” on ABC, and exceeds the average viewership for the 2010 World Series.
Since the game’s launch November 9, players have logged more than 600 million hours on Call of Duty: Black Ops. That is equal to more than 68,000 years of game play. Daily participation could fill the world’s 83 largest sports stadiums every day. The average player spends 87 minutes in the game every day, more than the 55 minutes spent by the average Facebook user each day, according to Activision Publishing.