Call Of Duty: Black Ops II Now Available

Back in May, the folks at Treyarch and Activision officially announced the release date for Call of Duty: Black Ops II as November 13, 2012. Honestly, that seemed like eons away at the time, but if there's one thing that school taught you, it's that the summer flies by extremely quickly, and just like that, today is November 13, 2012.

The Call of Duty series has been a huge hit ever since the original title was released back in 2003. Last year's installment, Modern Warfare 3, saw $400 million in sales just on the first day alone, selling 6.5 million copies in North America and the UK. The first Black Ops title garnered $360 million in sales, while the previous title, Modern Warfare 2, earned $310 million.

Obviously, there's an upward trend happening, and if history is any indication, Black Ops II will most likely shoot past $400 million within the first 24 hours of availability. People were lined up at GameStop hours before the game's release at midnight, and IGN even conducted a poll that found that 26% of gamers planned on skipping work or school to play the new game.

Of course, any diehard Call of Duty fan has played hooky at least once during a launch day (myself included, back in the day), but 26% is a fairly high number today, especially for a game series that has seen a yearly launch for the past six years or so, proving that the series hasn't died down just yet.