Call of Duty

Call of Duty is a first-person and third-person shooter video game series franchise. The series began on the PC, and later expanded to consoles and handhelds. Several spin-off games have also been released. The earlier games in the series are set primarily in World War II; starting with Modern Warfare, set in modern times, the series has shifted focus away from World War II. Modern Warfare was followed by Modern Warfare 2, set in modern times, and Black Ops, set during the Cold War. Modern Warfare 3, also set in modern times (as the name suggests) was released on 8 November 2011.
The Call of Duty games are published and owned by Activision and published for Apple OS X by Aspyr Media. Most have been developed primarily by Infinity Ward and Treyarch; some games have been developed by Gray Matter Interactive, Spark Unlimited, Pi Studios, Amaze Entertainment, Rebellion Developments, and n-Space. The games use a variety of engines, including the id Tech 3, the Treyarch NGL, and the IW 5.0. Other products in the franchise include a line of action figures designed by Plan-B Toys, a card game created by Upper Deck, and a comic book mini-series published by WildStorm.
As of November 27, 2009, Call Of Duty games had sold 55 million copies for $3 billion in revenue. A 2010 Q3 earnings call from Activision confirmed that the eighth installment of the franchise – a FPS – was currently in development by Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software and due for release "during the back half of 2011". This has been revealed to be Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, with the latter developers co-developing multiplayer.
As of February 9, 2012 there are 40 million monthly active players across all of the Call of Duty titles, with 7 million Call of Duty: Elite users and 1.5 million paying annual members