Ditching work to play CoD, Cyrsis or Halo may not be the smartest or most conventional move, but hard-core gamers certainly won’t blink an eye when it comes to breaking in a new title on its first day.
That’s right – gamers are likely to spend all night playing, and possibly even the next day. So yes, bosses around the country should expect some avid gamers to call in sick for work tomorrow with tonight’s long-awaited launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
The CoD roll out is expected to be one of the biggest of the year – with hundreds of thousands of gamers already lining up at retail stores such as Best Buy and GameStop, both of which are planning midnight launches.
In addition, Best Buy home businesses group vice president Chris Koller knows exactly which of his employees won’t show up the day after Black Ops II launches.
“I have a few folks on my staff who are passionate gamers, and I know for a fact they are going to be taking the day off,” he said. “I signed the day-off slip for them. … It’s an event. They do it every year.”
Best Buy plans to have 900 of its stores open Monday night (tonight). About one-third of the locations will let customers play the game on big-screen LG 3D TV sets in the store starting at 9 PM. Black Ops 2 will have a story mode requiring about eight hours worth of play to go through, and the title also boasts an online multiplayer combat mode that draws some serious gaming action.
Treyarch is the studio behind COD: Black Ops II. Studio head Mark Lamia said, “I’ve heard stories of increased numbers of ‘sick days’ during Call of Duty launches. I’d like to wish everyone I’ll see online on (Tuesday) a speedy recovery.”
