Activision’s Call of Duty franchise takes up the top three spots in Microsoft’s chart of 2011’s most played games on Xbox Live.

Black Ops was by far the most played game of 2011, just before Modern Warfare 3, which happens to be in 2nd place in spite of only releasing on November 8. Modern Warfare 2, which launched in 2009, is in third place. However it doesn’t stop there, either, with Call Of Duty 4 in 14th as well as COD: World At War at number 20, meaning that the Call of Duty series occupies a quarter of the top 20 with 5 games.

There are various ways to measure a game’s success. One of them is sales numbers; a second is review scores and lastly the number of people actually playing the game along with the number of hours. Please find below the list of the top 20 games:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
4. Halo: Reach
5. Battlefield 3
6. Skyrim
7. Gears of War 3
8. FIFA 12
9. FIFA Soccer 11
10. Madden NFL 12
11. GTA IV
12. NBA 2K11
13. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
14. Call of Duty 4
15. Battlefield 3 Beta
16. Halo 3
17. Gears of War 2
18.  Forza Motorsport 4
19.  Red Dead Redemption
20.  Call of Duty: World at War