Modern Warfare 3 Continues Dominant Call of Duty Tradition

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was November’s best-selling game in the United States, newly emerged industry data reveals. Its massively successful debut hence continued the fairly long tradition of Call of Duty games dominating sales charts during the penultimate month of the year.

Originally released on November 10 following a short campaign early access period, the latest Call of Duty game debuted to a mixed critical response. But it didn’t take long for it to become clear that the shooter was going to be a commercial success, as Modern Warfare 3 dominated Steam and UK sales charts during its launch week.

Modern Warfare 3 Marks 5 Years of CoD’s November Sales Dominance

That success continued over the following weeks, at least in the U.S., where Modern Warfare 3 was the best-selling game in November despite being released almost halfway into the month. According to the latest market highlights from Circana, the new Call of Duty game outperformed recent heavy-hitters such as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and the Super Mario RPG remake on a dollar sales basis during the observed period. Elaborating on this data point, Circana Executive Director Mat Piscatella noted how this is the fifth year in a row that a Call of Duty game was November’s best-selling title in the world’s largest gaming market.

And while there is no indication that the latest franchise entry outsold its immediate predecessor, Activision has been quick to point out that MW3 broke several notable player engagement records for the Modern Warfare reboot trilogy. Circana’s recent market highlights strengthen that claim, with the data analytics company estimating that the Call of Duty HQ launcher had the second-highest number of monthly active stateside users on both the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in November 2023. The app was hence only behind Fortnite in this respect.

Best-Selling November Games in the U.S.

However, figuring out how many of those monthly users have actually bought Modern Warfare 3 is far from straightforward. That’s primarily because the launcher incorporates not just the latest series entry, but also Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone, the free-to-play battle royale spin-off previously known as Warzone 2.0. Granted, Activision did advertise the newest game to all users of the launcher quite aggressively, to the point that its Modern Warfare 3 marketing push in CoD HQ stirred quite a bit of controversy. But it is still plausible that MW3 would have ranked lower in monthly active stateside players were it not sharing a launcher with Activision’s other two titles powered by the IW 9.0 engine.

CoD: MW3 Dominated Stateside November Sales Despite Poor Reviews

This massively successful launch month is all the more impressive in light of the fact that Modern Warfare 3 debuted as the worst-rated mainline game in Call of Duty history by some margin. And though the contrast between its poor review scores and sales could be indicative of the series’ immense brand value, the gap between the game’s critical and commercial reception actually mimics the difference in quality between its single-player and multiplayer elements; while the former were largely responsible for its lackluster reviews, the latter were what actually drove early Modern Warfare 3 sales.

Either way, the game’s launch month dominance is a strong indicator that Call of Duty remains as relevant as ever. Time will tell whether the series manages to maintain this momentum throughout its third decade of existence, but Activision seemingly has little to worry about for now.

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023)

Released in November of 2023, Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023) continues Captain Price’s story from the 2019 and 2022 games. 

Released

November 10, 2023

Genre(s)

First-Person Shooter

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Use of Drugs

How Long To Beat

5 Hours

Metascore

60

Platforms That Support Crossplay

PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S

Split Screen Orientation

Horizontal Only

PS Plus Availability

N/A

Local Co-Op Support

1-2 Players