According to surveys, Black Ops IIII is the year's most anticipated title.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
UK - Physical Call of Duty BO4 Launch Sales Lowest in 11 Years
- Thread starter DriftingSpirit
- Start date
Jesus Christ at CoD at its peak. I do remember being there for those numbers but it's still crazy looking back.
Yeah my bad I meant for the UK from what I have seen from people here.
According to the same survey, SUPER Mario Party is as anticipated as Smash Ultimate.
UK being an outlier would be really weird, UK fucking loves their Call of Duty.
I think PC sales being high makes sense, battle royale "started" on PC and treyarch has always treated PC people pretty well.
Regular reminder that attempting to use first week UK physical sales to extrapolate anything at all about the market as a whole is never a good idea.
I would suspect that physical sales took a bigger hit than digital sales will compensate. Digital sales should reflect continuous inflation as digital distribution becomes more and more popular with consumers; however, the 50% reduction in physical sales seems awfully steep.
The transition to a largely, online only GASS game likely lost some consumers and it would not be surprising if these were considerably more likely to be players that appreciated physical ownership (you can play a singleplayer game, trade it in, and return it).
The transition to a largely, online only GASS game likely lost some consumers and it would not be surprising if these were considerably more likely to be players that appreciated physical ownership (you can play a singleplayer game, trade it in, and return it).
I mean to be honest it's getting harder to pick up retail titles in the UK without going out your way.
All the main game stores except GAME are gone, supermarkets don't always stock a new game until the following week. Or only stock 3 of the most recent releases, or top 10 at others.
UK retail releases will never pick up again unless some incentive is magically brought to retail space
All the main game stores except GAME are gone, supermarkets don't always stock a new game until the following week. Or only stock 3 of the most recent releases, or top 10 at others.
UK retail releases will never pick up again unless some incentive is magically brought to retail space
I'd have to ask what surveys.
Looking at Amazon, pre-orders for Red Dead Redemption 2 are in the #1 sales spot at the moment, with sales of Black Ops IIII being in second place. I'm not convinced that digital sales are what magically make up the difference either.
Digital sales picking up. I wouldn't be surprised if PC sales were also stronger than usual for CoD. People seemed positive from what I've seen.
Spider-Man is going to slay this holiday season. 100% engagement? Wew lad.
Ubisoft said Odyssey had the best start for a AC game thise gen. You would not imagine it, if you just look at UK numbers.
For Shadow of the Tomb Raider, I haven't seen global numbers. But in other territory like France, the game did great.
Ever heard of I don't like sitting on my arse twitching curtains waiting for a postman? I'd much rather go to an actual store
OP
OP
I saw a comment on Reddit where someone argued that the physical drop vs solid digital is potentially reflective of the game's lack of singleplayer. As in, the demographic that plays Call of Duty singleplayer possibly has a significant overlap with the demographic that buys physical. There's no easy to prove or disprove that, but it is an interesting thought.
I mean, yes it's basically online only but what do you do with it when you have enough of it and moved on or when Blackout 2 (and the next COD) comes out in a year and the support of this game is dead?
On one side, it makes a lot of sense to go digital, but on the other side, it was never been dumber to not buy it physically.
On one side, it makes a lot of sense to go digital, but on the other side, it was never been dumber to not buy it physically.
Cod fatigue is absolutely setting in and Blops4 will feel the effect of this, however the positive sentiment is going to result in sales legs here. Digital sales will undoubtedly be strong for this one too.
I'm sure when next year comes round you can always trade in your physical copy against the new CoD.
I'm sure some place will give you a decent price, I mean look at last years CoD WW 2 price.
GAME offer in UK, £5.00 trade in and that game had a single player. Probably get like £3 for BLOPS 4 next year.
Yeah, that's what I mean. Unironically unlike you. It's stupid to not go physical with this one cause it's basically dead in 12 months and everyone buys the next one. You could trade it in (together with one other game) and get another new game basically for free (if the GameStop 9,99 deals are still a thing). With digital it's dead meat in your collection when you're done (or when the game is dead).
Or when your done in half a year with it it's still 30-40 bucks worth cause the price stays stable for a long time, specially if it's successful.
OP
OP
Digital sales will be added starting January 2019.
I wouldn't call it worthless with just physical though.
Yep, I had God of War disc version installed in my library - it was a mates disc I'd borrowed and given it back - and I bought GoW today on the store as it's currently reduced.
After buying it came up with an error message saying I already had GoW disc version installed, this must be removed for the digital version to be installed.
EDIT: What's weird is the save game still works so I can still continue where I left off. So saves are digital/physical cross compatible.
Last edited:
Like I said, you could trade them for other games or sell them before the new game comes out (Or when you're done with it after a few weeks or months, cause, you know, it happens sometimes that you won't play every MP game for it's whole life circle) and it safes you a lot of money. I'm a little bit shocked sometimes how lazy some people are these days.
I mean, I know it from myself that I do it too here and there and buy digital, but then, when it happens that I just don't play a game anymore after 1-2 months or so, because I have to much other stuff to play, or I realize it just was dumb to buy and a mistake, then I'm freaking mad at myself and ask myself why I bought it digitally while I could make a good buck out of it if I had it physically.
Last edited:
I've never seen it that way before, but I think you have a good point here.
Last edited:
Physical makes sense considering its an annual release, better off getting some money back for it when the next one comes out.
Except that with physical you can trade it in or sell it when you get bored of it, and get at least half your money back.
First CoD I've not bought since I can remember cos of no campaign but I imagine I'm a drop in the ocean on that point.
As much as digital is continually growing that still seems like a very steep drop.
It's particularly stark with the historical chart Bruno posted
As much as digital is continually growing that still seems like a very steep drop.
It's particularly stark with the historical chart Bruno posted
If it's the case of a singleplayer game with MP that is exactly what i do, play the campaing, check the MP, and sell or trade the game. I'm talking about games like overwatch, rainbow six siege, even destiny can be applied to that since the campaing is just a warmup to the real deal. But I understand your point, to me it does not apply to a game MP Only like black ops 4. But I still got it.
edit: by the way, Overwatch and Destiny i bought phisically and sold as soon they got on sale on xbox live, because i knew i will play them a lot, I don't buy a lot of stuff, most of my phisicall games are gifts from my wife and i basically play destiny AND overwatch haha
Last edited:
Was pretty predictable. I'm a physical collector, but it didn't make sense to me, to buy a physical version of a mostly online only game. So I bought the digital version.
If you get bored of it within the first month sure. Trade-in prices are generally shit for multi-player yearly franchise games in the UK. An example is FIFA 18, you can trade it in at GAME for £2 credit or £1.40 cash.
Okay guys, Q4 will be a bloodbath this year.
I am expecting a lot of multiplatform franchises to be down and it is pretty normal. Publishers will need to be very aggressive to stay in the spotlight. It could be via price promotion, aggressive marketing or thanks to an incredible reception (93+).
FIFA, Assassin's Creed and CoD are only the beginning : Battlefield, Fallout are next. Being in November they'll face a tougher competition with all the already released Q4 games that could be cheaper by then.
Spyro and RDR2 could escape that, thanks to a different target audience for the first one and the big return of Rockstar for the second (even tough we should define expectations beforehand, it won't be GTAV imo).
I am expecting a lot of multiplatform franchises to be down and it is pretty normal. Publishers will need to be very aggressive to stay in the spotlight. It could be via price promotion, aggressive marketing or thanks to an incredible reception (93+).
FIFA, Assassin's Creed and CoD are only the beginning : Battlefield, Fallout are next. Being in November they'll face a tougher competition with all the already released Q4 games that could be cheaper by then.
Spyro and RDR2 could escape that, thanks to a different target audience for the first one and the big return of Rockstar for the second (even tough we should define expectations beforehand, it won't be GTAV imo).
Not to mention that fucking Acti printed a fucking 200MB Bluray.
not necessarily. just says "total number of players who connected online to play..."
if it actually matched or increased sales, they would've said. instead we get this really weak PR speak.
here's another theory: it declined YoY but because it's multiplayer focused, it's black ops and this year more than ever they're courting the hardcore audience, instead of a bunch of people buying the game and then playing it a few days later, or buying it and going straight into the campaign (and not connecting online), it's just a very dedicated group of players jumped straight in right off the bat, increasing total players online off of less copies.