Rolling Stones digital singles and new “Call of Duty” top $360 mln in sales

The legendary rock band, Rolling Stones, never really required any extra help to promote their songs, but collaborating with a popular franchise always helps, without a doubt.
Two of their singles “Gimme Shelter” and “Sympathy for the Devil” were associated with the latest action videogame release, “Call of Duty: Black Ops”, that boosted the single digital sales for both of these songs, according to 4Press.com. The entertainment news website reported that from an initial 2,000 sales per week the figures shot up to around 11,000 a week.
“Gimme Shelter” was used for an advertisement promoting the newly released game that was an instant hit among the gamers. It generated more than 3 mln views alone on YouTube. “Sympathy for the Devil” was used inside the game as background score.
However it was never easy to have usage rights for “Gimme Shelter” from ABKCO Music & Records and the ad was shown prior to the company for the approval. If Activision music affairs vice-president Tim Riley is to be believed then another Rolling Stones song will be used for an Activision product in near future.
Meanwhile, Billboard reported that the game itself set a new record for opening-day videogame sales, with 5.6 mln copies and $360 mln in sales (including all pre-orders). The previous record for single-day sales was the last installment of the same game — "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" — which last year sold 4.7 mln copies and rang up $310 mln in opening-day sales.