Call of Duty: Black Ops Crowned Best Selling Game of All Time

Activision and Treyarch’s first person shooter is swimming in an ocean of money according to NPD reports.

When Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 reigned over the sales charts a year ago, everyone marveled at the numbers the game sold. Now, a mere year later, NPD is reporting that Treyarch’s successor has 13.7 million units in the United States and 23.5 million worldwide.

If we stop and think about it for a moment, the price hasn’t gone down at all. Therefore, that’s 23.5 million units at (on average) 60 dollars a pop. That’s 1.41 billion dollars earned. Now, with the First Strike map pack that was recently released (priced at an outrageous 15 dollars), that’s another potentially 352.5 million dollars for Activision.

Not too shabby.

Back in December, Activision boasted that Black Ops had hit one billion dollars in sales. The franchise as it stands has become a juggernaut in the industry. In fact, if you look at last year’s holiday releases you’ll notice everyone moved their games out of the way of Black Ops to keep their profits up. This year, however, is looking a little more uncertain. Heavy rumors of a Modern Warfare 3 have been popping up, but nothing has been officially confirmed other than some kind of Call of Duty game will come out. In addition, the new Call of Duty is being developed by three separate studios in the wake of the legal trouble with Infinity Ward.

With Mass Effect 3, Uncharted 3, and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, this holiday season is shaping up to be a bloodbath. It’s possible the other companies may flinch and push up their release dates into January, February, and March like they did last year. We’ll most likely know more by the time E3 rolls around.