At $1 Billion, How Does Modern Warfare 3 Compare To The World’s Richest Businesses?

Activision officially announced that Modern Warfare 3 grossed over one billion dollars in its first 16 days, quite the feat for the game that was promoted alongside the Jeep Cherokee, Xbox console, Mountain Dew, and last but not least, Gunnar sunglasses.

Love it, hate it, or ignore-it-because-it’s-not-Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3 has shattered video game sales records, but how does it compare to other franchieses and enterprises in modern culture?

In other words, how is the gaming industry sizing up to some of the most profitable companies and products in the world?

Avatar 3D

The most obvious comparison is the Academy-Award winning film Avatar, which took box offices by storm in 2009 and set the record for the fastest film to reach 1 billion dollars…in 19 days.

33 days later, the film became the first ever to gross over 2 billion dollars. While we’ll wait and see how long until MW3 grosses 2 billion, Avatar still fell a couple days short of the billion dollar mark Modern Warfare 3 just set.

Advantage: G4M1NG INDUSTRY

NFL Football Teams

In 2010, it took the revenues of the Dallas Cowboys (420 million), the Washington Redskins (353 million), and the New England Patriots (318 million) combined to gross over one billion dollars. Those are yearly revenues, not 16 days…case in point.

Advantage: G4M1NG INDUSTRY

ZYNGA Mobile/Social Media Gaming

In the third quarter this year, between July 1st and September 30th, Zynga reported its highest revenues ever with 306 million dollars, an almost 80% increase over the previous year.

At that rate, it would take Zynga almost a year to accomplish what MW3 did in 16 days…

Advantage: R34L Gaming Industry

Facebook

It’s estimated that Facebook will gross $4.27 billion in revenue this year, which broken down over the fiscal year (assuming periods of stable growth) comes out to 82 million/week.

Over 16 days, that would gross Facebook roughly 184 million, putting them over $800 million short of Modern Warfare 3′s pace.

Advantage: G4M1NG Industry 1 The Zuck 0

Apple iTunes Store

Today there’s the growing google music store, spotify, and a slew of growing music outlets, but back in 2003 when the service launched, iTunes was the only game in town, offering 99 cents for a legal song.

It took iTunes 3 years to sell its billionth song, or roughly 1,079 more days than Modern Warfare 3 took to hit a billion dollars in revenue. Granted the iTunes store is built for longevity and will make more money in the long-haul, it speaks volumes as to how meteoric MW 3′s sales numbers are when Apple is considered the golden child of “fast economic growth.”

ADVANTAGE: G4M1NG Industry

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola has a yearly revenue of 35 billion dollars, which broken out over 52 weeks puts their total at roughly 675 million/week. That comes in a comfortable half a billion dollars over Modern Warfare 3 when/if you consider that pace holding steady over a 2.5 week total.

You can’t win them all…

Advantage: Sugary Stuff

The United States Federal Deficit

At a whopping and stroke-inducing $3.94 billion per day, the U.S. national debt kicks the hell out of Modern Warfare 3′s ability to generate revenue, albeit while doing the opposite.

In fact, if the U.S. National Debt were to be paid off via revenue sold through copies of MW3, it would take Activision selling 250 billion copies of the game to close the deficit.

Maybe Call of Duty 28: Death of A Nation will be our country’s savior?

Advantage: We’re All Screwed

Granted this list doesn’t take into account net profit, advertising/marketing costs, or other economies of scale, it does point out the enormous impact Modern Warfare 3 has made on the global economy.

A video game, something that is shunned by many in the mainstream as a ‘waste of time,’ has shown to be one of the highest grossing commodities in the history of the global economy.

Whether that garners more respect for the video game industry, opposed to other industries that somehow can’t escape their own lackluster growth, remains to be seen.

Gamers know numbers like these aren’t surprising; in fact, they may just be the beginning…

RELATED LINKS:

Are Unions Holding Back Hollywood and the NBA? (The Video Game Industry Might Have The Answer)

Man Fights Off Thief At Gunpoint to Save Copy of Modern Warfare 3

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