MW2 is ‘a roadmap for future launches’

Publisher Activision says it will use the learnings of the Modern Warfare 2 launch for future releases.

The game has grossed more than $1 billion worldwide, and was backed by a huge retail campaign – making Modern Warfare 2 the biggest game launch in the industry’s history.

"This unprecedented achievement is a result of a well orchestrated and globally integrated approach across the company," said Activision publishing boss Mike Griffith.

"Our two-year leapfrog development strategy continues to deliver the goods on this franchise producing exceptional quality in a highly rated game.

"Our sales and marking teams for the first time successfully leveraged social media to event marketed launch date and engage our broad network of fans around the world. Retailers strongly supported the title with a number of retail funded TV campaigns that hosted over 10,000 midnight store openings in North America alone.

"And our finance and supply chain teams were able to execute the biggest global launch as measured by the first five days of sell-through in a history of our industry assuring that we had stock when and where we needed it without undue credit risk. In total, we use our learning and experience from this effort to the roadmap for future launches in terms of both effectiveness and efficiency."