Call of Duty’s Lackluster March Isn’t Indicative of Much

Call of Duty’s Lackluster March Isn’t Indicative of Much

Generally speaking, the videogame industry sees the sale of games come primarily at launch before quickly tapering out. Nintendo games and Call of Duty games are some of the few exceptions to this. Whereas even many big titles will disappear from the NPD sales charts within a few months of launch, the latest Call of Duty traditionally has a long stay at the top before sticking around in the top ten long after when the majority of games would have fallen off. Modern Warfare 3 has yet to drop out of the top ten but it is doing more poorly than Black Ops was at the same point last year, leading some to wonder if the Call of Duty bubble is ready to burst. The series’ haters may want to delay celebrating just yet, however, as it’s hardly as if Activision is on the verge of being forced to shelve the series like it did Guitar Hero last year.

The “shortened tail” of Modern Warfare 3 first had attention called to it last week by PiperJaffray analyst Michael Olson. Gamasutra reported Olson was expecting MW3 to sell in March half of what Black Ops did during the same period last year. He was not of the belief this decline was specifically related to Call of Duty, though. “We believe big name titles are no longer able to sustain ‘fat tails.’” he said. “This ‘thinning tail’ phenomenon is driven by 1) casual gamers leaving the market, 2) a steeper pre-sale and up-front curve, and 3) cannibalization from the pre-owned market.”

The impact of secondhand sales can be debated all day; some would say they hurt new game sales, while others would counter that they make it possible for some gamers to afford new games and lead to the sale of downloadable content. Both sides have a point. In the case of a game like Modern Warfare 3 that doesn’t use any sort of online pass, it’s entirely possible that many consumers looking to pick it up now are opting to save a few dollars by purchasing a used copy (making it seem as if there is less demand for the game than there was for Black Ops last year).

More up-front sales, as Olson pointed to, is also likely to be contributing to some degree. It may not be selling as well this many months after launch, but Modern Warfare 3 had a record-breaking launch with both its first day and first five days. Despite being available for less than two months, it was also the best-selling game for all of 2011 in the United States according to the NPD Group. The point of this is not to remind you Call of Duty is a big deal, but instead to suggest the possibility that some of those people who waited until spring to buy Black Ops were compelled to pick up Modern Warfare 3 right at launch. So rather than having its sales more spread out over time, MW3 has attracted more early adopters. Considering that increases the likelihood of those people paying full price — you’re less likely to find the game on sale in November or December than you are in March — that is not necessarily a bad thing (and it’s also not a Call of Duty-specific phenomenon, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter).

And as noted by Olson, it’s possible some of the more casual players have moved on to entertaining themselves in other ways. That could mean they’re buying other games (considering the lull the industry is currently going through, I wouldn’t put my money on it) or using their consoles for other purposes, such as streaming video content from the increasingly large number of entertainment apps found on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The aforementioned dip in software sales industry-wide are another factor that could be contributing to the current decline; software (and hardware, for that matter) is simply not selling well in much of the world right now. The availability of Battlefield 3 isn’t helping MW3′s case, either, and the marketing muscle EA put behind it would explain part of Cowen and Company’s Doug Creutz’s assertion that the MW3 drop is due to decreased sales on Wii, handhelds, and PC. It’s entirely possible many PC gamers are opting to pick up BF3 instead of MW3.

Those with a disdain for Call of Duty — a group that seems to increase with each passing year — would no doubt argue the poor March sales are a direct result of the annualization (and accompanying lack of innovation) that has plagued the series for the past half decade. By alternating between Infinity Ward and Treyarch, Activision has allowed each to have two years in between releases. As far as the cynics are concerned, though, each new release brings little more than new guns and levels; it’s an oversimplification, certainly, though there is no denying every game feels remarkably similar to the one from the year prior. Then again, considering the games continue to sell as well as they do, changing things drastically could be considered a poor business decision.

We unfortunately don’t have exact sales numbers for Modern Warfare 3, so it’s difficult to know precisely how it stacks up against Black Ops overall. (Analysts have suggested it has sold between 4 and 5 percent fewer copies.) Whatever may be responsible for its disappointing performance last month, the year-over-year growth had to stop eventually. (The launches may continue to get bigger, but that, too, will stop at some point.) It is easy to imagine things being different next year because of the retail market recovering or simply because Black Ops 2 will be competing against Medal of Honor Warfighter, which I don’t expect to put up as much of a fight as Battlefield 3.

Even if future Call of Duty games fail to sell as well as Black Ops, that doesn’t mean they will be any less successful. As more gamers take their consoles online, that increases the potential number of people to sell downloadable content to. More importantly, the introduction of Call of Duty Elite has opened up a way for Activision to get $ 110 out of hardcore fans per year instead of $ 60 plus a few possible $ 15 DLC purchases. In year one there are upwards of 1.5 million people willing to fork over $ 50 for an Elite subscription; it will be interesting to see how many of those stick around and how Activision tries to attract new subscribers. The monthly DLC installments MW3 Elite subscribers are seeing are a good start.

Considering all of this, Call of Duty haters should not be too excited about the news of MW3′s performance last much. At least until Call of Duty stops being a yearly record breaker, it’s not about to go anywhere.

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Call of Duty’s Lackluster March Isn’t Indicative of Much

Call of Duty’s Lackluster March Isn’t Indicative of Much

Call of Duty’s Lackluster March Isn’t Indicative of Much

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