MCVUK

275,000 physical games were sold in the UK last week. Xbox Live title State of Decay sold 250,000 units in two days in the same week.

It’s an observation made by UK journalist Lee Bradley and is one that perfectly illustrates the changing dynamics of the video game market.

Of course, there are factors to consider. State of Decay has performed exceptionally well on Xbox Live – it’s the fastest selling new IP of all time and the second fastest seller behind only Minecraft. And its sales numbers are global.

And last week’s UK market – worth just £6.02m – was the lowest on record.

Nonetheless, that an indie Seattle developer can with its debut release sell more units than the combined power of every powerhouse publisher and platform holder in the UK is a stark statement.

A huge array of triple-A blockbusters have been announced and detailed in LA this week. Yet last night a comparatively tiny indie game called Fez 2 was the only title trending on Twitter.

Triple-A or bust? Triple-A is bust, perhaps.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/xbla-title-state-of-decay-matches-the-uk-s-entire-physical-market-in-one-week/0117195

Would be impressive if the industry wasn't this doomed right now.. Doooooom

UK market is pretty meh right now. This says more of about current-gen fatigue than about digital dominance.
State of Decay sales numbers aren't the norm, they are rare with only 1 or 2 small titles achieving such success a year.

This makes it even more impressive. Makes digital sales-tracking even more important.

is to be expected, very slow week & state of decay had a fair amount of hype behind it.

ok but please don't compare worldwide sales of one game with the sales of all retail game in only one country...because it's still "only" some 100k for state of decay. great for an arcade game but nothing special for a retail game.

nice :D

i cant wait for the pc version of this game, count me in.

You must be thinking of another Zombie game:

This was you. We did not have an ad budget. We didn’t have a physical copy to load onto shelves, no worldwide multimedia push, no studio reputation with millions of followers. All we had was what we believed was a great game and a great community. And make no mistake, a solid game is not enough, not in 2013. Plenty of great games wither away in obscurity. This train got rolling because you got out and pushed.

http://undeadlabs.com/2013/06/news/breaking-records/

A place where I can use this!  Relevant:



Just replace "universe" with "UK games industry"; "kitten-class attack ships" with "physical sales" and "mighty chairs" with "State of Decay".

OT: SoD is experiencing extremely impressive sales.  Seems like a case of being the right game in the right place at the right time.  Good for it.