Modern Warfare vs. Twilight New Moon

Modern Warfare is a first-person shooter video game. Twilight New Moon is a fantasy-romance movie based on the novel by author Stephenie Meyer.

Both were released at the same time (mid-November). Every news story was about how Twilight New Moon was so popular and it was breaking records and was a cultural phenomenon. Every magazine cover featured Bella and Edward.

I heard a couple news stories about Modern Warfare.

Here's a comparison:

Modern Warfare 2
- first day sales $310 million
- first 5 days sales $550 million

Twilight New Moon
- first day sales $26.3 million
- first week $296 million

The lesson here is that whenever the media tells you that something is a cultural phenomenon, it's not telling you that there is something else a whole lot bigger.

In this case, it's a video game. No one wants to hear that. People who play video games are viewed as losers and geeks by the media. They're viewed as a tiny, insignificant subculture.

Who's your daddy New Moon!!!!