One in four Black Ops II players plan to call in sick on Call of Duty release day

Call of Duty: Black Ops II launches at midnight tonight, and lots of fans are planning on skipping work or school to play it.

In a survey of 10,000 IGN fans, about one in four respondents said they plan to skip work or school to play Black Ops II on launch day. Average game playtime is expected to be 5.5 hours on launch day. The survey was conducted over the weekend as an online survey to visitors at IGN.com. At this point, Call of Duty has become so big that it is starting to have its own effects on the economy.

Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard announced that the downloadable content (DLC) season pass will now include the Nuketown Zombies bonus map, which will be available to season pass holders in December. Fans who pay $49.99 for the season pass will get four DLC map packs as well as access to the Nuketown Zombies bonus map.

In other news, Amazon said that Call of Duty: Black Ops II broke its record for the most preordered game of all time on any platform (but did not release any specific numbers). The previous record was held by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Those who order the game from Amazon will receive an Amazon Kindle exclusive, Rightful King, a story about villain Raul Menendez. And Turtle Beach also launched its exclusive Call of Duty: Black Ops II headset.

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.