Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Cascading through the gaming community
The Call of Duty video game series is perhaps the most popular among gamers today. Only a year ago, Call of Duty: Black Ops hit the market with record-breaking sales. However just recently, Activision published Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which was the “most anticipated game of the year” by multiple gaming websites and forums. According to Microsoft, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has set two new records on Xbox Live:
• “More than 7.0 million multiplayer hours were logged played Call of Duty: MW3 by the end of the launch day, a 19% increase over last year’s 5.9 million multiplayer hours logged by Call of Duty: Black Ops last year’s launch day.”
• “3.3 million unique gamers played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in one day, compared to last year’s 2.6 million unique gamers from Black Ops.”
In addition, Activision, the publisher of Modern Warfare 3, has stated “Modern Warfare 3 has established an all-new five day worldwide sell through record of more than $775 million, exceeding the record of $650 million set a year ago by Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops.
I believe that information cascades can be a likely cause of the Call of Duty frenzy. As more and more gamers bought the Call of Duty series, others followed. They assumed the game was good, with cooler features and better graphics than any other FPS (first person shooter) games on the shelves. If we look at the second bullet above, we can see that the number of unique gamers buying Call of Duty is increasing each year. This means that the word and anticipation is spreading about the game. New people, who haven’t previously played the Call of Duty, are beginning to pick up the game. Furthermore, the large multiplayer option of the game provides a reason to purchase the new game. If your friends are no longer playing Black Ops multiplayer (almost a year old) and have switched their dedication to Modern Warfare 3, you must also if you want to continue to enjoy gaming and competing against your friends. This is where most of the pleasure and fun comes from playing video games.
To defend Activision, they have done an extremely great job with advertising the game and beginning the social cascades. For example, in the most recent trailer of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Activision employs Sam Worthington, Jonah Hill and Dwight Howard to make a “teaser” trailer that is both humorous and informational about the new features of the game. With trailers like these, more and more gamers will be intrigued and drawn, contributing to the growth of the information cascade that is already taken the world by storm.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/09/30/nielsen-taps-most-anticipated-games-modern-warfare-3-on-top/
http://www.holyfragger.com/multiplatform/first-person_shooters/call_of_duty_modern_warfare_3/news/?a=2400