'Modern Warfare 2' poised to dominate 2010 video game revenues

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has been making bullish statements following the generation of $3 billion in sales since flagship title
Modern Warfare 2 was released on November 10. The Call of Duty franchise, he said, "is likely to be one of the most viewed of all entertainment experiences in modern history."

The company boss has every right to be pleased, after netting around $37 million following two sales of his personal stock options during the game's launch, and totalling $50 million's worth of share sales since August.

Modern Warfare 2 built upon the success of its November 2007 predecessor Modern Warfare, both part of the Call of Duty series of games, and quickly became the fastest selling game in video game history.

Modern Warfare had maintained its original $49.99 price point for nearly all of its two-year life cycle, and while various issues disrupted Modern Warfare 2's pre-release schedule, including a higher retail value of $59.99, a similar price-holding pattern is expected to emerge due to constant levels of demand from video gamers.

An analyst for business information firm Broadpoint AmTech this week predicted an estimated $100-$140 million in extra revenue for Activision in 2010 flowing from various forms of downloadable content for the game.

Rob Bowling, of game developers Infinity Ward, also intimated this week that the first tranche of that extra content would be available sometime in "the wonderfully vauge timeframe of Spring."