Marketers vow 'biggest launch ever' in entertainment history for 'Modern Warfare 2.' (Probably not an idle boast.)

Whether or not you're a gamer, you're going to get blitzed like no one else in history. Marketers TBWA/Chiat/Day in L.A. got its orders to make the November release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 "the biggest entertainment launch of all time," according to the ad campaign announcing the ad campaign for the upcoming Activision-Blizzard game.

And that means bigger than any movie, game, or anything else in any entertainment industry. Almost immediately, the plans call for the marketers and Activision to "really start building a movement" for the online game. I suppose that's like the new "Ford Fiesta Movement," only about a million times bigger.

Like the auto industry, the video game industry is in the midst of a double-digit drop — 17 percent down in May, according to MarketWatch, and "soft" sales, according to Barron's. But market analysts are predicting a bounce-back, in part because of the growth of online games in China.

Rupal Parekh reports on the Modern Warfare 2 stuff in Advertising Age. Noting that video-game launches have already bested box-office numbers in the past couple of years, he adds:

Activision-Blizzard, whose other franchises include the immensely popular Guitar Hero and World of Warcraft, wants to beat previous sales records set by video games such as Grand Theft Auto and blockbuster movies such as Dark Knight.

The biggest opening weekend for any movie to date was 2008's Dark Knight, which raked in $158 million at the box office, according to data from online database Box Office Mojo. Others that had big opening weekends in Hollywood were Spider-Man 3, which saw nearly $151 million at the box office, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest with $136 million.

The marketers aren't exactly going out on a limb with their boast about the Modern Warfare 2 launch. As CNBC's Julia Boorstin says, video games plastered with ads are already huge and are expected to get huger no matter how the rest of the economy fares:

Video games are a distinct bright spot, with a projected 5.8 percent compound annual growth rate over the next five years, more than any other media with the exception of online ads or Internet access. The video game industry -- just the games, not the hardware -- will generate $17.2 billion in sales this year, growing to $21.6 billion in 2013, which will make it three times the size of the recorded music industry. ...

And it's not just the same old revenue streams; advertising in video games is expected to hit $886 million this year, and grow to $1.4 billion in 2013.