America's Economic Priorities: Mortgage, Car, Video Games

Wilmington, N.C.

            The general manager of the Best Buy store on South College Road is frantically finalizing the preparations for this Monday night. As manager, a lot of responsibility has fallen upon Dale Marshall, and he insists that every employee be prepared for what the night will bring. “We’ve gotta make room for that Mountain Dew display over here so the tournament center will be clear,” says Marshall. The general manager walks the aisles of the store between the cell phone department and the video game section to do a few final run throughs with his employees to make sure the night will go off without a hitch.

At 12:01 A.M on November 8^th, electronics stores will celebrate the release of Activision’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3,” for which Best Buys, Walmarts and Gamestops across the nation have been diligently planning for months. “Modern Warfare 3” is the newest installment of the widely popular “Call of Duty” first-person-shooter franchise.

The game is a follow up to last year’s release, “Call of Duty: Black Ops,” which is currently the best-selling video game of all time. “Black Ops” shattered theatrical box office, book and video game sales records for a five-day sell-through period of more than $650 million. This release exceeded Activision's previous five-day worldwide record of $550 million set by 2009’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” according to internal Activision estimates. Activision, the game developing company behind the “Call of Duty” franchise seems to have a firm hold on the entertainment industry, and they do not plan on letting up with the newest release. “Historically, ‘Call of Duty’ is the best-selling video game franchise, and they tend to move more units than anything else, industry wide,” says Best Buy manager Dale Marshall on the success of the series.

Not only will this week’s “Call of Duty” debut have a huge national impact, but many local businesses will also be appearing at the midnight release at the Wilmington Best Buy on South College Road to get some publicity and to endorse the new game. Coastal 97.3 has teamed up with Mountain Dew to continue on with Dew’s marketing campaign leading up to the release of the game. Fanboy Comics, a local comic shop is supplying an array of comic and game related door prizes and is sponsoring a by-lottery tournament for a copy of the game.

Many analysts are predicting “Modern Warfare 3” to beat out the sales records set by its predecessors, but many other hefty releases will compete to make their mark among the rising black lines of the sales charts this fall. “This fall’s video game release season is shaping up to be the perfect storm with Electronic Arts’ and Activision’s flagship shooters, ‘Battlefield 3’ and ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3,’ respectively, going head to head by releasing a mere two weeks apart,” says Michael Klappenbach of About.com. Klappenbach does not mention some of the other heavy hitting titles appearing this holiday season from the “Batman,” “Assassin’s Creed,” and “Uncharted,” franchises that are also likely to stimulate high sales.

Representatives from Activision, Microsoft, Gamestop and Best Buy all declined to discuss the projected number of units of “Modern Warfare 3” that had shipped or the projected sale information due to legal reasons. But Michael Pachter, a high profile gaming research analyst for Wedbush Securities offers some thought on the possible number of units sold. “‘Modern Warfare 3’ will come out on top with some 16 million copies being sold in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 24 million by the end of 2012,” says Pachter. He points out that the figures are simply estimates, but if the pattern of sale in recent years remains the same, “we’re in for another ‘biggest launch in history’ all over again.”

24 million is an intimidating number of consumers, but some people see the “Call of Duty” franchise as a simple fad. “I got tired of ‘Call of Duty’ when they were making games about World War II,” says Owen Blanton, a graduate of East Carolina University. Blanton claims to be one of the only gamers that he knows of to be dissatisfied with the direction that “Call of Duty” has taken in recent years. “My favorite first person shooter was ‘Medal of Honor: Allied Assault,’ which totally dominated PC games sales for years,” commented Blanton. But Blanton admits that he will definitely be among the millions of Americans who will be $60 dollars poorer this fall when “Assassin’s Creed: Revalations” hits the shelves.

To the rest of the world, it may seem a bit strange for gamers to spend $60 per new release, and to spend hundreds of dollars replacing malfunction system hardware. “I have experienced the ‘Red Rings of Death’ five times on my Xbox 360,” says Matt Gudlaugsson, a former UNCW student. The Red Rings of Death are an infamous sign of massive hardware failure on an Xbox 360 console, and can only be repaired in a slow process by professionals at the customer’s expense. Gudlaugsson often questioned why he continued to give his money to Microsoft time after time, and attributed the cause to a single reason: “Halo 3.” Gudlaugsson said this of his gaming addiction: “If it weren’t for ‘Halo’ I would have either switched to Playstation or given up on gaming a long time ago.”