An interesting piece of information has come out of a tracking firm by the name of OTX.

OTX routinely surveys gamers in America to find out the level of excitement and intent to purchase that is in the community for upcoming titles. Pre-E3 the brand awareness of COD: Modern Warfare 2 was 40%.

Which meant that 40% of all gamers surveyed knew about the title currently in development, however when the Call of Duty moniker was dropped the level of awareness dropped along with it to 20%. That’s an incredible 50% drop purely by leaving out the Call of Duty name.

However it’s not all bad news for Activision as the level of “intend to purchase” did not waver and Modern Warfare 2 is still listed as the 6th most anticipated title.

Some of the big names above it are HALO: ODST, God of War 3, Super Mario Bros, Final Fantasy XIII and Assassin’s Creed 2… not a shabby list to be behind.

When all is said and done I highly doubt that Activision will be sorry about dropping the COD name, this game is going to be massive and will easily kick start an entirely new brand name for them.

Source: Gamasutra