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Call of Duty buzz grows 4X after Black Ops II unveiling

Call of Duty: Black Ops II has generated a lot of buzz since its unveiling on May 1 during the NBA playoffs. Activision Blizzard’s latest entry in the blockbuster video game series generated four times as many messages on social networks, according to market analyst Nielsen Media.

The firm tracked only 4,911 messages about Call of Duty across a number of social media sites — Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs, and boards — on April 30. The number grew to 21,454 messages on May 2.

On YouTube, users have viewed the launch trailer 7.1 million times. This morning, the video has 70,954 likes and 25,085 dislikes.

Retailers started taking preorders for the game yesterday.

Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.