$1 billion in sales for Modern Warfare 2

Interesting article at Business Management on the relative sales of the film Avatar and the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.  Both have over $1 billion in sales to day.  Call of Duty 2 actually had a somewhat higher advertising budget ($200 million to Avatar’s $150 million), and apparently film makers  are starting to get a little wary of releasing a film on the same weekend as a major game title release.  Call of Duty 2 has already made $750 million in profit.  Apparently I’m in the wrong line of work.

Barry Collins at PC Pro has an article up discussing a follow up visit to Second Life three years after his initial foray.  He finds most of the islands rather empty, with the notable exception of Zindra, Second Life’s red light district.  Apparently the activity there, however, is enough to generate ever increasing numbers of user hours.  I can’t say I’m horribly surprised by this.  I watched the first generation of virtual worlds go through the exact same initial buzz/boom/collapse of interest cycle in the 1990’s.  Linden has managed to escape the fate of many of the first generation of 3D world providers by providing a space for sex in their ecosystem.  Whether there’s enough business there to sustain them in the long-term, and whether it’s really the business they want to be in, are interesting questions.