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'Duty' calls at midnight: Buy, buy, buy

Associated Press

Pablo Alcala | Staff HERALD-LEADER

Customer service representative James Dingle sold a copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to Christian Fox during the midnight launch of the game at Best Buy on Nicholasville Road on Tuesday. About 75 people were waiting outside the store for the game to go on sale, and a few dozen more arrived after the doors opened at midnight.

AP

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 focuses on the pursuit of a vicious leader of the Russian Ultranationalist movement.

This holiday season's biggest entertainment blockbuster probably will be a sequel to a popular franchise, with jarring depictions of war and an intricate story of good versus evil. It easily could rake in more than last year's record $155 million opening weekend for The Dark Knight.

But this blockbuster isn't a movie.

It's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, a video game that Activision Blizzard released Tuesday. Fans worldwide are expected to spend at least half a billion dollars on the game in the first week.

That would at least match last year's Grand Theft Auto IV, which was the most successful video game release in history and might have been the top entertainment launch ever.

Like the previous five Call of Duty games, this one lets players shoot their way through a complex series of scenes. A big part of the game's appeal is in its multiplayer component — players can fight one another, whether they're at the same game console or in separate locations and connected online.

Or a player may dive in alone and get swept into the game's plot, which picks up where Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, left off. That game ended with victory over a Russian terrorist, but he was just part of a larger conspiracy. This time, the target is an even more vicious leader of the Russian Ultranationalist movement. Settings include a snowbound Siberian base, a leafy American suburb and the burning streets of Washington, D.C. One trailer for the game shows a glimpse of action in space.

Activision worked with retailers to plan more than 10,000 midnight openings in the United States, including most of the 4,300 GameStop stores around the country. In Lexington, hundreds lined up at more than just GameStop. A hundred or so people attended a midnight launch at Best Buy on Nicholasville Road. And while it won't give numbers, GameStop said pre-orders for Modern Warfare 2 hit an all-time high.

In all, about 28 million Call of Duty games have been sold in the United States, with each installment doing better at launch than the previous one, said NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter estimates Activision is spending as much as $50 million to market the game, including TV spots, billboards and ads on social-networking sites. Activision won't say how much the game cost to make, but most blockbusters require tens of millions of dollars.