Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 once again set a new entertainment record, grossing $775 million in five days. That said, EA's Battlefield 3 did quite well for itself also, selling 5 million in its first week. New survey data from social gaming service Raptr now sheds a bit more light on the shooter rivalry, revealing that Call of Duty has seen much more playtime than BF3 on the shooter-centric Xbox 360 platform.
Surveying its 10 million member gamer network and automatically tracked gameplay data, Raptr found that users logged an average of 40% more playtime in Modern Warfare 3 on 360 than Battlefield 3 on the respective games’ launch days, "despite unprecedented gamer enthusiasm and a significant marketing push for the launch of Battlefield 3."
In total, MW3 saw an average of 6.19 hours of playtime compared to 4.45 hours for Battlefield 3. Looking beyond launch day and at each game's first week, Xbox 360 players logged 17% more per-user playtime in Modern Warfare 3, averaging 20.45 hours compared to 17.37 hours of Battlefield 3. Perhaps the most telling stat is that Modern Warfare 3 accumulated more total hours played in one week post-launch than Battlefield 3 has in three weeks post-launch.
Interestingly, in terms of player overlap between the two shooters, 53% of Battlefield 3 players on Xbox 360 are also playing Call of Duty, but only 31% of Modern Warfare 3 players are playing Battlefield 3. It's also worth noting that 92% of respondents "consider DICE a more innovative developer than Infinity Ward" and 58% of respondents said the Battlefield franchise "has had a bigger impact on the FPS genre," and yet these same players are putting more time into Call of Duty.
"The battle for dominance for the first-person shooter market in 2011 is clearly in Activision’s favor,” said Dennis Fong, CEO of Raptr. “EA made a valiant effort evangelizing its fanbase and generating massive support around the launch of Battlefield 3. Given how well received the game was, EA has a powerful opportunity to take things further next year, though it’s clear at this point that Call of Duty is a phenomenon that is unrivaled.”
