activision – eXtravaganzi

The World of Warcraft/Starcraft Theme Park – World Joyland

World Joyland - The World of Warcraft/Starcraft theme park

Officially called World Joyland, this theme park is the World’s first World of Warcraft and StarCraft theme park. In true Oh China fashion, the StarCraft section has been renamed Universe of Starship, while the World of Warcraft sections are even better, having been christened Terrain of Magic. Unfortunately, the park’s not exactly authorized by Activision or Blizzard Entertainment, but if you don’t read Chinese, you probably wouldn’t realize that. The park itself is about 600,000 square feet. The builders spent $31 million putting it together. Beyond the rides, they also included oversized gaming and tech R&D facilities in the park, in case gamers feel separation anxiety from their gaming systems. The concept of the park in general is actually pretty cool, Joyland is an attempt to merge our digital entertainment lives with the real world:

World Joyland will gather the world’s best contents of digital culture, combine the newest digital entertainment and interactive technologies, partially realize anime-and-game virtual sceneries, innovate anime and game communication and display methods, interpret the core value of digital culture, archive education during entertainment.

The good folks at the ShanghaiIst blog spent a day at the park and come back with an interesting report. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX7I5Zdp_V4&feature=related[/youtube]

Call of Duty: Black Ops is the Best-selling Game in U.S. History

Call of Duty: Black Ops Call of Duty: Black Ops has surpassed Wii Play to become the best-selling game in US history. According to new figures released by sales tracking firm the NPD Group, Activision’s first-person blockbuster Call of Duty: Black Ops is now the best-selling video game ever released in the U.S. At last count, Call of Duty: Black Ops is reported to have sold 13.7 million copies stateside in the four months since its November release. This number is a combination of sales across all platforms including PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii and Nintendo DS.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Surpasses $1 Billion in Sales Worldwide

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Over 600 Million Hours Logged Playing Call of Duty: Black Ops

Game Continues to Set Entertainment Records

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Dec. 21, 2010 /PRNewswire/ – Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced today that Call of Duty: Black Ops continues to set sell-through records crossing the $1 billion mark in sales worldwide since its launch in November, according to internal Activision estimates. In its first five days alone, the game sold more than $650 million worldwide, outpacing theatrical box office, book and video game sales records for five-day worldwide sell through in dollars, according to internal Activision estimates and boxofficemojo.com. The game exceeded Activision’s previous five-day worldwide record of $550 million set by last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Sets New One-day Sales Record

Call of Duty: Black Ops Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops, the new and 7th game title in the series of Call of Duty, sold 5.6 million copies in 24 hours, making it the biggest entertainment launch ever, generating an estimated $360 million in sales. That’s a monstrous record, beating out Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2‘s $310 million for the biggest one-day sales record in videogame history. There has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records for two consecutive years, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said in a statement. The game is also on track to outperform last year’s five-day global sales record, which was $550 million, Kotick said.

World of Warcraft Mount Celestial Steed Earns Blizzard $2.5 Million an Hour

Freshly born from the Twisting Nether, the Celestial Steed flying mount lets you travel in style astride wings of pure elemental stardust. So saddle up, because this supernatural warhorse will fly as fast as your riding skill will take you, and it will travel at 310% speed if you have at least one other 310% mount. Once activated, this World of Warcraft in-game mount key applies to all present and future characters on a single World of Warcraft license.

Celestial Steed

Blizzard has long been in the practice of selling ‘pets’, which are ornamental creatures that follow players around the World of Warcraft. But the Celestial Steed is the first ‘mount’ (ridable animal friend) which must be acquired through grubby lucre rather than honest-to-god in-game effort. As soon as the Celestial Mount was announced the gaming community fractured. Added to the online Blizzard Store, the digital goods immediately attracted a high volume of orders, so much so that the shop began placing interested buyers in an automated queue to allow controlled batches of visitors to finalize their purchases on a first-come, first-served basis.