Michael Pachter’s job as a gaming research analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities requires him to make difficult decisions. As an analyst he has to interpret, extrapolate, and predict the future of an industry that is evolving more quickly than it ever has before. With all that resting on his shoulders, Pachter appears to be required to also stereotype the entire gaming press.
When asked in an interview if Call of Duty: Black Ops would be the best-selling Call of Duty for Activision thus far, Pachter stated:
I think that Black Ops has a lot of good things going for it, and a few challenges. The good things are that it’s a clearly beautiful game, the setting is fresh, and the developer has gotten better review scores on each iteration. The challenge is that Treyarch is called the “other” Call of Duty developer for a reason; the top review scores for the franchise on gamerankings.com are held by Infinity Ward games, with Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 2, the original Call of Duty, and Call of Duty 2 each receiving average scores of 89 or higher.
Prior to Pachter’s interview, Michaël Sportouch, Call of Duty general manager for Europe, stated the following:
…our ambition is to set another record like we did with Modern Warfare 2. The resources invested behind Black Ops in terms of development of the game and the marketing are the highest ever for Activision. Our ambition is not only to be the biggest game but also the biggest entertainment launch of the year.
With a release date less than two-weeks away, it won’t be long before we find out who ends up being right.
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