Modern Warfare 2 Loses Recognition

Call of Duty is something everyone knows about. Even my Granddad has heard of it. Modern Warfare on the other hand does not seem to share its father series’ commercial recognition as a recent study has shown.

Tracking firm OTX carried out a study a few months ago to track the brand recognition of major titles among gamers. When it did so, Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was one title in particular which was receiving a nice response with 40% of gamers being aware of the title. Personally, I’m surprised at such a low percentage however the next statistic is even more startling.

Having redone the survey with the game having now dropped it’s “Call of Duty” title, the number of those recognising the game have halved to only 20%. That’s a big drop. I would imagine that Activision were aware that there would be some confusion with the title switch but I doubt that even they thought it would be this significant.

Whether or not this will have an effect on analyst projections that the game will be the highest selling of 2009 will be interesting. Activision certainly have their work cut out for them having recently instructed their ad agency to prepare for the “biggest entertainment launch of all time”. Is a possible rethinking of the title on the table?