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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 clocks $1 billion in sales

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That didn’t take long. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 rang up $1 billion in sales just 16 days after it launched in stores Nov. 8, according to the game’s Santa Monica publisher, Activision Blizzard Inc.

Activision said about 30 million people have played a Call of Duty game since the series launched in 2003.

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Still, Activision, in a statement released Monday morning, placed Call of Duty in the same pantheon of other mega-entertainment franchises such as ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Harry Potter’ and the National Football League.

Whether Call of Duty proves as enduring as the NFL, which kicked off in 1920, remains to be seen. But for this year, Modern Warfare 3 is likely to stand untoppled as the bestselling game of 2011.

Even with three weeks remaining in the year, Amazon.com already declared it to be the No. 1 game for its store. The online retailer on Monday released its top 10 selling titles for 2011. Activision claimed two spots on the list -- both of them Call of Duty titles.

Activision said the amount spent on the latest Call of Duty franchise bested the box office take of James Cameron’s ‘Avatar,’ which took 17 days to reap $1 billion after its release in 2009. Of course, more people--hundreds of millions--have seen ‘Avatar’ in theaters than have played Call of Duty.

Top 10 titles sold on Amazon.com in 2011*

  1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Activision Blizzard)
  2. Just Dance 3 (Ubisoft Entertainment)
  3. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda Softworks)
  4. Battlefield 3 (Electronic Arts)
  5. Portal 2 (Electronic Arts)
  6. Batman: Arkham City (Warner Bros. Interactive)
  7. Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft)
  8. Madden NFL 12 (Electronic Arts)
  9. Gears of War 3 (Microsoft)
  10. Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision)

*Sales are for games sold as discs. They do not include games sold as digital downloads.

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Source: Amazon.com

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-- Alex Pham

Twitter/ @AlexPham

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