We've all seen them and met them, some on Youtube, some on the official forums and some are friends: COD-defenders. Now, their claims are that COD is so much better than Minecraft, mostly using the 'excuse' that Minecraft has bad graphics and that it's boring. Now, when they're talking in this 'bullshit'-mode, some of us give in to their trolling and fierce discussions ensue and sometimes erupt into mean and terrible online-wars (Kinda like very small versions of the Boxy-phenomenon). Well, I'm here to present the hard facts, to see what game is better according to the numbers.

Call Of Duty is a franchise, encompassing up and around 12 games. The total revenue is 3 billion dollars, with 55 million copies solds between 2003 and 2012. The franchise has 40 million monthly active players, with 7 million Elite-players and 1.5 annually active players.

Now let's translate that into percentages. 55 million copies sold over a decade, with an average of 5.5 million per year aka 10% copies sold per year en total.
About 3% of the players pay per month and only 1.5% of the players pay each year, giving a hardcore group that makes up for about 2% of all the players.

Minecraft is a indie-game, having sold its first million copies with PR-stunts whatsoever, relying only on mouth-to-mouth advertising. Total revenue is about 23 million dollars, as of april 2011. It has sold 6.4 million copies between 2009 and 2012, with about 100.000 in Alpha and 1 million in Beta. It has 32.9 million registered users and 6.4 million users have bought the game.

Let's translate that into percentages. 6.4 million copies sold over 3 years, with 100.000 between 2009 and 2010 and 1 million between 2009 and april 2011. This translates into roughly 0.5% in Alpha, 5% in Beta and 94.5% in the final game.
About 20% of registered users have bought the game.

Now, in comparison, COD has received between 3 and 30 million dollars per year and Minecraft has received between 2 and 7 million dollars per year. We can say that for an indie-game, Minecraft has had more stable sellingrates than COD has had. These sellingrates have also drastically increased in the last year. If we were to translate that growth over all three years, then Minecraft would have received about 18 million dollars each year, which almost half of that of COD. We must also remember that most revenue of COD is gained through monthly payments, which only about 10% of all registered COD-players pay every month or each year.

We must also keep in mind that COD has about 18 'different' games, that's including the expansions. Minecraft has only 3 'different' games, namely PC, Pocket Edition and XBox. Also, note that Xbox had sold 400.000 copies in the first 24 hours and that profit was being made after the first hour of sales. SOmething that can not be easily said of COD.

Also, as far as users go, Minecraft outnumbers COD in percentages: 20% against respectively 6% and 1.5%.

Now, I'm not saying anything in particular. I'm just stating the facts. And the facts state that Minecraft's sellingrate is as good (and sometimes better) than those of the COD franchise. Also, Minecraft has a much more stable sellingrate and revenue, together with a more coherrent and stable community.

Take these numbers as you want, but I dare to say that these numbers say that both are about equal, each with its own positive and negative parts.