Call of Duty publisher believes TV ads are essential to sales

Call of Duty is one of the most notable of the big franchises that advertises in mainstream spaces. Activision vice president of global marketing Jonathan Anastas says TV commercials are still an important part of games marketing.

"If you want to sell 10 million or more copies of a console game, TV is not going away yet," Anastas told [a]list Daily.

"At that point, you're breaking into the 'blockbuster' game buyer, who may only buy one or two games a year and is not a deep follower of the genre or your brand.

"They may buy Halo in 2012 and GTA in 2013 and play Words With Friends in-between the two when not watching Netflix or playing Minecraft. I'm not going to convert that buyer on my Twitter feed."

Anastas admitted that social media marketing does have an important role to play, though, in building new audiences beyond the "blockbuster" crowd.

"Brands can build, aggregate and engage their own audiences, often with greater reach than the old media third parties," he commented, but went on to say that there's so much fragmentation that nobody's really sure which corners of the Internet to target.

Call of Duty has sold about 30 million copies per yearly iteration for several years in a row. It's one of the most widely-recognised gaming brands along with Halo, Grand theft Auto and sports games like Madden NFL and NBA 2K.

Thanks, Gamespot.