Tracking firm OTX is claiming that it's not just the Call of Duty name that Infinity Ward has lost with its upcoming Modern Warfare 2. According to research, the title drop has also resulted in a loss of brand awareness, with the game now falling from the radar of 20% of American consumers.

"Up until the beginning of May, OTX had been tracking the title as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. More specifically, we asked a representative group of gamers in the U.S. whether or not they had heard of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. At that time, approximately 40 percent of all gamers in the U.S. claimed that they had heard of this title," explains OTX.

"However, once it became clear that Activision was positioning the title as Modern Warfare 2, OTX removed Call of Duty from the consumer survey, and the awareness levels dropped to 20 percent. In other words, the Call of Duty brand association essentially doubles the awareness for the game. That is quite a remarkable statistic."

I can certainly see why the decision was made to drop the CoD moniker. After all, it looks better for a publisher to have two huge shooter franchises rather than just one, and it's good to differentiate between the work of Infinity Ward and Treyarch. Of course, it now looks as if evil publisher Activision will have to market Modern Warfare 2 like never before if it hopes to be as successful without the CoD name backing it up. 

If one thing Activision is good at (apart from being evil), it's marketing. I'm fairly certain MW2 will get its own brand awareness soon enough.