Black Ops 2 Breaks Amazon's Pre-Order Record

[Greg Tito]

Black Ops 2 Breaks Amazon's Pre-Order Record

A lot of people ordered the latest Call of Duty before it even came out.

Ever since the crazy astronomical numbers of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in which the game sold more than 7 million copies on November 11, 2009 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96054-Did-Modern-Warfare-2-Sell-7-Million-Copies-in-One-Day], each iteration of the shooter franchise has performed better than the last. While many of Black Ops 2's customers picked up the game today or at one of the many midnight events organized across the United States, a healthy portion of gamers pre-ordered the game through the online retail outlet Amazon.com. How many? Well, we don't really know the specifics but, according to a Tweet from Amazon's game feed, Black Ops 2 now reigns supreme as the most pre-ordered game in Amazon's history.

[tweet t=https://twitter.com/amazongames/status/267714593164513280]

I'll let you make a guess as to what was the previous record-holder? If you answered Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, you get a quadcopter-shaped cookie. There are no hard sales numbers yet from Activision regarding how Black Ops 2 fared today, but if the trend continues - and there's no reason it won't - the latest Call of Duty will continue to break every sales record known to man. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114249-Modern-Warfare-3-Breaks-Every-Sales-Record-Known-to-Man]

Given the high-profile releases earlier this month that have fallen short of breaking these records, I'm pretty sure EA (Halo 4 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/10011-Medal-Of-Honor-Warfighter-Review]) are kicking the dirt at Activision's high-flying sales.

Source: Twitter [https://twitter.com/amazongames/status/267714593164513280]

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[Beautiful End]

If people hate these games as much as we're led to believe, WHO IS BUYING THEM??!!

Kids.

Any other questions?

Alright, alright. So I see a lot of kids, tweens and teenagers preorder Blops. They usually go with their parents who are oblivious to the franchise and don't give a crap about what their kids play.

The "grownups" who buy the game usually trade it in like a week after they're done. Well, that's usually the case but it depends on how good the game is. like RE6, we got like easily 20 preowned copies of that game already. But when Blops 1 came out, you couldn't find a preowned copy for months.

That's my guess.

OT: Yeah, I won't be surprised to hear Blops 3 or MW4 will break preorder records. It's the circle of life. Even if the game sucks, if its CoD, people will buy it.

 

[newwiseman]

What I hate is there pre-order BS. You get Nuketown if you pre-order any edition but only get Nuketown zombies if you pre-ordered hardened or the other special edition. F#$% you Treyarch.

Zombies is the only thing I like about the COD games since World at War. Haven't bought a COD game since World at War. Zombies is just too easy on those maps after this much time.

 

[WanderingFool]

http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/g360/Unit-22/Thefucksnotgiven.gif

That gif is pure win...

And... to be honest... I pre-ordered for Nuketown 2025.

 

[Lucky Godzilla]

If people hate these games as much as we're led to believe, WHO IS BUYING THEM??!!

Why do you care?
Don't like the game? Simple don't buy it. It's the perfect example of the silent majority. The haters make so much noise when compared to the fans, so despite the fact that they are apparently smaller in number, they appear to be a larger group than they really are.

 

[porous_shield]

This game selling so well is the same reason big budget blockbusters sell so well even though they are usually garbage. I'm glad they didn't equate selling well with good quality like I've seen done in many other articles about games or movies.

 

[razer17]

I got Blops 2 after work today. Played the first mission, came off it and played a bit of Halo 4 co-op, then played another couple of missions on CoD.

Seems pretty decent. The campaign certainly feels a lot better than Blops 1 or MW3, and I quite liked the future setting. Not touched the MP yet, but I did like the Pick 10 thing when I played the Beta in September.

All that said, it hasn't reinvented the wheel. It's a good game, but it isn't revolutionary. But hey, the formula works, people love the game.

I do love the haters though, their argument is often this: "Hey guys! Did you hear that BEST GAME EVER is getting a sequel?" "Oh man, sweet!" "Awww it's really similar to everything I loved in the first one, what a pile of shit!"

Spoiler

I'm not saying that CoD is the best game ever. BEST GAME EVER is a magical entity that can be whatever the hell you want. I'm using a little hyperbole to make a point

 

[Woodsey]

If people hate these games as much as we're led to believe, WHO IS BUYING THEM??!!

You'd be surprised by the number of times I've seen comments along the lines of "well, the last two were shit, but they're super-serious about doing it good this time, swearsies". I know I fucking am.

OT: How utterly and depressingly predictable.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Given Halo 4 is a system exclusive and made $220 million on the first day, I'm sure Microsoft are unphased. Especially given the percentage of BLOPS 2 pre-orders that count for Xbox 360 sales.

 

[Section Crow]

Not shocked nor surprised, just plain ol' disappointment...

 

[nexus]

That's kind of sad.

If the Templars of Assassin's Creed fame had their own game, spoogin' on about their world view.. it would be Call of Duty.

It really feels like two secret factions having a go at it for the popular vote via sales wars.

 

[alik44]

so lets me read the script

-cod makes a lot more money than it probably deserves

-cod gets overwhelming praise for........something from either payed off reviewers or people who just stopped caring

- repeat next year except add another mil to the money it makes

 

[DjinnFor]

inb4 "Call of Duty single player is garbage what is the world coming to how could anybody like the game as I apparently don't know that it sells because of the multiplayer"

inb4 "Call of Duty multiplayer is a terrible no skill game and I only think that because I'm terrible at it and got stomped all day by good CoD players every time I tried it".

 

[ShockValue]

I really hope it breaks more. All the tears will be great.

 

[Kinguendo]

http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/g360/Unit-22/Thefucksnotgiven.gif

That gif is pure win...

And... to be honest... I pre-ordered for Nuketown 2025.

Huh, peculiar... I avoided pre-ordering to avoid getting Noobtown. Got screwed when you get the map anyway with a new copy!

RANT: Anyway, thought MW2 was noob-heaven. Black Ops is, in my opinion, the best FPS (pre-quickscoping patch). This renewed my faith in the series as a whole... I bought MW3, was sorely mistaken in my renewed faith. Got rid of MW3 within the first week and decided I would only trust Black Ops games, bought Black Ops II... not liking it. They took out currency so there is an unfair advantage for anyone above 55 (when you get ghost) rather than anyone being able to buy it at any time if you have the money, this has led to the obvious... people sitting and camping for kills on any game mode until they get UAV and then they dare move.

On Black Ops, when I saw a group start relying on UAV I just switched to one of my Ghost classes and punished them for it... now what do I do? Level up to 55 and hope those same people are still playing? I have only played for a few hours and so far that is a very large problem. They do seem to have simplified the entire thing and now just reward people for playing more rather than having skill, which is what money did. The better you played, the more money you got, the harder contracts you completed the more exp and money you got.

If they threw in that with a system that rewards the use of weaker guns, or punishes the use of OP guns, by raising or lowering the total experience and money reward at the end then people would actually play properly and get better at the game rather than putting on OP guns and spraying like a noob. If the top KD guy using an OP weapon actually got a lower score than a moderate scoring player with a weak weapon then they would have NO defence when you call them on their weak skills, I have had this argument many times... "I got more kills/points." always comes up.

In conclusion, this game feels like it was made by commity... and that commity is all the whiney players who complained about the lack of quickscopin in Black Ops and want the games to be incredibly unbalanced in favour of whatever they do rather than balanced and realistic based around a players actual ability. Ignore the age rating on this game, it was clearly made for kids.

 

[J Tyran]

Given Halo 4 is a system exclusive and made $220 million on the first day, I'm sure Microsoft are unphased. Especially given the percentage of BLOPS 2 pre-orders that count for Xbox 360 sales.

Exactly, lots of people are shouting about how BLOPs will outsell Halo 4 but it doesn't matter. Halo fans got a great game and the start of a new trilogy that looks promising, its also printing money for Microsoft who will easily make a massive profit. Not only that Microsoft will still make a huge amount of cash from BLOPs too, every game sold and every map pack and piece of DLC will all print money for MS with almost no investment from them.