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It may come as a shock to many gamers, but Call Of Duty is 20 years old.
It’s a franchise that has entertained hundreds of millions of players, and generated billions of dollars for its developers and publishers.
Since it first appeared as a PC game in 2003, it’s been called many things – not all of them complimentary.
But there’s no doubt that gamers around the world love the franchise which transports the player from the Second World War to the future, via real and imaginary conflicts ranging from Vietnam to the Cold War. In fact they love it so much that Call Of Duty is often cited as the most valuable game in history.
In a world where games releases regularly challenge Hollywood blockbusters and the biggest music releases for profitability, Call Of Duty can say it was there at the start. And it is still posting phenomenal numbers.
Since it first appeared there have been 20 different Call Of Duty titles from various teams making spin-off releases under the Modern Warfare, Advanced Warfare, Black Ops, Ghost, and Vanguard titles. Diversity which has meant gamers can pretty much expect a new COD game every year.
In total, it’s made an estimated $30bn with publisher Activision saying the game has generated $3bn in the past 12 months alone.
That’s possible because there are roughly 250 million gamers who play Call Of Duty, and of those, a million or so say they play nothing else.
Piers Harding-Rolls, research director at Ampere Analysis, says: “It is obviously up there with some of the biggest intellectual properties within the game space. I think lifetime revenue from the series of games is over $30bn. You compare that with any other entertainment property, and it’s out there with some of the biggest.
“It doesn’t seem to have the kind of knock-on merchandising opportunity that some of the biggest entertainment franchises have, but it does. It’s huge. And in the context of gaming.”
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