IN THE STREETS & ON THE WEB

CALL OF DUTY MW3 MAKES MORE THAN $1 BILLION DOLLARS IN SALES!

The newest Call of Duty video game blasted through the $1 billion sales mark in a record 16 days, the game’s distributor, Activision Publishing, said Monday.

The military-themed first-person shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 debuted on Nov. 8, when it blew away the series’ opening-day sales record.

On its debut day, 6.5 million units of the flew off store shelves to rack up $400 million in sales.

“There’s a very loyal fan base to Call of Duty that is very committed to and engaged in the franchise, but we’re also able to draw in new people every year,” said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing.

MW3 easily topped its prior version, Call of Duty: Black Ops, which took 42 days to reach the $1 billion revenue mark after it was released in November 2010.

Activision said the $60 game even beat out the blockbuster movie “Avatar,” which took 17 days to reach sales of $1 billion.

The Call of Duty series debuted in 2003.

Video games have boomed as a form of entertainment, and Call of Duty has managed to roll its popularity among gamers into a mass appeal, said Charles Bae, executive creative director at Rokkan, a digital advertising agency.

“It’s been riding its own wave,” Bae said. “When you have a game that big and that has that much hype around it, you’re bound to attract new players.”