Modern Warfare 2 consumer awareness suffers decline

A recent OTX survey has revealed consumer awareness for upcoming shooter Modern Warfare 2 has taken a substantial nosedive following Activision's decision to drop the Call of Duty brand from the game’s title.

Research has shown that 40 percent of gamers in the U.S. were familiar with Modern Warfare 2 back when it carried the Call of Duty moniker, though this ultimately dropped to 20 percent after the brand was removed.

OTX’s Nick Williams commented: "Up until the beginning of May, OTX had been tracking the title as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. More specifically, we asked a representative group of gamers in the U.S. whether or not they had heard of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. At that time, approximately 40 per cent of all gamers in the U.S. claimed that they had heard of this title.”

"... the consumer survey, and the awareness levels dropped to 20 per cent. In other words, the Call of Duty brand association essentially doubles the awareness for the game. That is quite a remarkable statistic.”

Regardless, Williams noted that the sequel is still poised to sell like hot cakes: "Despite this dramatic drop in awareness, the purchase intent for Modern Warfare 2 remains very strong," he said.

"The intensity of the purchase intent is particularly impressive, as illustrated by the high levels of Pre-Order Intent, which is the highest of any title currently being tracked."

Modern Warfare 2 is due out on November 10.

Source : PSU

I could care less if they drop the "COD" name - Infinity Ward made a great game with the 1st Moder Warfare game, this game has me excited like a kid on Christmas morning. I've scheduled a day off from work for the release date the moment the teaser trailer that launched over a month ago flashed the 11-10-09 at the end of it. As long as Infinity Ward continues the high quality game experience without the COD title, the game will do just fine.

I could care less, but a lot non-hardcore gamers no the name of Call of Duty, and they like that name. So will they not buy it because it doesn't have the Call of Duty name? Who knows...we will have to wait and see.

I guess if its Call of Duty than its hardcore ! So i guess hardcore gamers will take this game regardless of the name !

Yea but for most of the gamer's out there (casual gamers) will not recognize the name and may not buy it because so but I beat they will market it on TV enough to sell it.

but to be honest what prompted Activision to take the COD out?

Rashid Sayed wrote:

but to be honest what prompted Activision to take the COD out?

I think it is more of Infinity Ward.

They probably did it to get across the people that it's different from treyarch's COD games. The people that didn't like WAW might notice that it hasn't got Call of Duty in the name then see the infinity ward logo and be intrigued, whereas if it did have Cod in the name people might say "I didn't like the last one so I won't like this one." My far out theory

People remember Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare as Call of Duty but who knows.

In my opinion .. I don't really care about dropping the Call Of Duty part . I'm still gonna buy it because it's just reeking of awesomeness !

The title doesn't make a game the game makes the title.

the game will still sell like wildfire

yeah it will cause i bet the majority of gamers who played COD4 were pretty hardcore. So i guess better sense will prevail after all.

I heard recently that they were picking up the CoD name to bring back the awareness.

JiggyJoe21 wrote:

I heard recently that they were picking up the CoD name to bring back the awareness.

yea...They picked the Call of Duty name back up.

thats kewl! I thnk this was just a publicity stunt!