Call of Duty games have been hogging top spot in the lucrative first-person shooter genre for years now. Call of Duty: Black Ops took $400 million in revenue on day one. Pretty soon after that, it passed $1 billion. Big numbers. Hence why EA – rival to Call of Duty publisher Activision – really, really wants to beat Call of Duty .
The game that’s going to beat it? Battlefield 3 .
Speaking at the AdAge Conference in New York, EA boss John Riccitiello talked up this upcoming battle even more. He started the prick-waving by asserting the combined marketing cost for both publishers will be around $200 million. Then he came out with a fairly direct admission that Battlefield 3 serves only one purpose:
“[ Battlefield 3 ] is designed to take [ Call of Duty ] down. If you’re looking for a battle of the titans – Red Sox vs Yankees… Microsoft or Google – and what the tip-off point is for this holiday season, this is it.”
Strong words, but will Riccitiello and Battlefield 3 be eating dust later this year? My hunch is yes, probably , if only because the Call of Duty brand is so phenomenally strong.
Battlefield 3 looks like the bee’s knees ( see here ), but as the previous Battlefield game has LIFETIME sales of 6 million compared to Black Ops ‘s DAY ONE sales of 7 million, EA has set itself one hell of a task.
[ AdvertisingAge , via Eurogamer ]
