Call of Duty Gives Back

Here's a staggering statistic: there are about 500,000 unemployed veterans between the ages of 18 and 64 in the United States today. What does this have to do with video games you ask? Well, anyone who is into video games has heard of (and probably already purchased) the first person military shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The latest release in the critically acclaimed series broke sales records and the game's developer, Activision Blizzard, has decided to set up the Call of Duty Endowment in order to assist out of work US veterans. The endowment has already given over one million dollars to veteran-assisting charities and much of that money is coming directly from the sales of Call of Duty games. So if you think video games aren't culturally relative, think about this: on it's release date, COD:MW 2 sold 4.7 million copies in the US and UK alone for a total of $333 million. That's more money than some movies make in their entire cinematic run. Call of Duty isn't only invading millions of US and UK households, it's also giving back to the veterans who inspire the stories it tells.