You know what’s not a bad way to start a new year? How bout announcing that your latest title has sold more than a billion dollars worth. Yes, Modern Warfare 2 has reached that rare milestone among industry developments, and it’s still going strong.

“There are only a handful of entertainment properties that have ever reached the $1 billion mark,” said Activision CEO Bob Kotick, “which illustrates the power of the Call of Duty franchise and mass appeal of this game.” In case you’ve forgotten the baffling sales statistics, more than half of that billion was made in the first five days the game was available. Utterly insane.

In other new, Avatar (the movie, not the game) broke the billion dollar mark not too long ago, putting the two in a race to beat out Titanic’s $1.8 billion gross and Guitar Hero III‘s $2 billion.

The explosive growth of the gaming industry has directly translated to the back end, according some analysis done by M2 Research. The group found that average development costs for multi-platform games are deep into the tens of millions, averaging somewhere between $18M and $28M per game.

Single platform titles are still somewhere around the $10M mark, as the research has it. One of the big concerns about the high cost is the strain it puts on employees. Developers are pushed hard to make sure the publisher’s investment is met with solid return.

The return is there, at least on blockbuster titles. Take Modern Warfare 2, for instance. The game cost over $50 million to make but made $550 million in its first five days on the shelves. Average titles don’t always fare so well, and with a struggling economy, it’s easy to see why development houses are a little nervous.

Modern Warfare 2 is now officially patched for both Xbox 360 and PS3, meaning no more javelin glitch you dirty suicide bombers. Just imagine, exploit-free games of Headquarters Pro. Are you weeping yet?

The patch doesn’t just put the kibosh on super-human-bomb-from-hell-mode, it also fixes that little problem where certain players were receiving unlimited care packages. And while Inifinity Ward was fixing those two, why not get the pesky rock glitch out of the way.

All in all, this is the best thing to happen to MW2 since release. Games are immediately more fun, more fair, and much less of a headache. This also rules out the chance that you might actually pull off a javvy glitch by accident and get yourself a temp ban. Hurray for quick development fixes.

If you’re interested in what it feels like to get a temp ban on Xbox Live, go do a little suicide bombing in Modern Warfare 2. As Microsoft’s Stephen Toulouse tweets it: “While IW works on getting the MW2 glitch fixed, people we catch using it will recieve suspensions from LIVE. Play fair everyone.”

Now I understand the idea to an extent – bans because of game ruining – but banning players for something that game developers missed seems a little ridiculous. There are far easier ways to ruin games, like throwing them in your opponents favor, that won’t get you banned (I’m not talking about boosting here). And really, who hasn’t gotten a little tipsy/slaphappy/what-have-you and had a little fun.

I won’t say the glitch isn’t a game breaker. It is. But temp bans on a paid service for a glitch that almost everyone in the game is now aware of? One that really isn’t that hard to stop (how bout you don’t shoot the guy running around with a javy)? This kind of thing makes me want to go eat a glass apple.

I’ve only played through a few levels of the Modern Warfare 2 campaign, but it’s easily some of the best FPS campaigning I’ve enjoyed. Flashy guns, complicated situations, and characters with a whole bunch of issues always makes for an interesting story. Interesting enough, in fact, that Infinity Ward is thinking about giving one of those guys a solo gig. Yes, rumor has it that Ghost, the creeper with the skull mask, just might get his own game.

According to Craig Fairbrass, the voice-actor who played Ghost in MW2, things are looking like this: “I’m now voicing a guy called Ghost, who now just got a spin-off comic of his own and they’re talking about another little game to go with it.” Fans of the series probably got that little six-part comic, but does he mean the same thing by “little game?” Could Infinity Ward be looking at an iPhone game? It doesn’t seem likely that they would make a full-blown spinoff for a series that’s not typically character driven. Who does Ghost think he is, anyway, Master Chief? Puh-lease.

Source: That Video Game Blog