nightsurge said:
Exactly. Shio will never accept that PC gamers are full of pirating jerks and that's why developers and sales on PC are dropping so much lately in favor of consoles. Oh and I love how he still links people to his thread of rampant speculation to refer to it as proof. I'd say there are probably about 1 million legitimate PC sales of CoD and the rest are all pirated (probably a good million+ of pirated users). I was on CoD4 on PC the other day and was shocked to see how few servers there were compared to games like Counter Strike Source. The online community in CoD4 on PC is so much smaller than any other PC FPS I have ever played (CS Source, Call of Duty[the original], BF 1942, BF 2) |
@Ail and nightsurge, it's obvious you 2 didn't even read the post I linked, yet you replied anyway. Then I'll give you the gist of the post I linked.
Posted Jan 25, 2008 by Gamespot:
"Activision today claims Call of Duty 4 has ended its 2007 tour of duty with 7 million confirmed units sold worldwide, making it the top-selling title across all platforms for the year. Activision said it had pulled its data from NPD Group, Chart Track, and GfK Group.
While Activision claims to have sold 7 million worldwide, the publisher later clarified its statement, saying that its figure only encompasses North America, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Benelux."
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6185154.html
Activision never released hard figures for the PC version of Call of Duty 4, but in early 2008 they told Call of Duty 4 had sold over 7 millions copies in 2007 (until December 31, 2007) on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 combined. MAC and NDS sales weren't included. Those figures were taken from the Retail sales of just a few selected markets:
- North-America (USA + Canada)
- UK
- France
- Germany
- Italy
- Spain
- Benelux (Belgium + Netherlands + Luxembourg)
Looking at these countries we find that most of them are console-centric markets (NA, UK, Italy, Spain) and only Germany, France and Benelux are more PC-focused, leaving out dozens of smaller PC-dominated countries like the eastern european coutries, scandivian markets, Portugal, China and South Korea, etc...
8 was the number of weeks that COD4 had been available in 2007, since November 6th in NA and 9th in Europe. According to VGChartz:
COD4's NA sales in 2007: 3,684,207
COD4's Others sales in 2007: 2,019,705
That comes to a total of 5,703,912 sales in 2007 for North-American and Others Regions. Nifty! There's a 1.3 millions discrepancy, so PC must've sold that much in the above markets, right? Wrong.
In VGChartz's North-American figures it's also included sales from Central and South-American markets. I happen to remember the great ioi once said that those sales account for around 10% of the Total NA sales, so let's remove that excess:
COD4 USA+CAN sales in 2007: 3,684,207 - 10% = 3,315,786
Since COD4 came out in November 9th in Europe, so it was 3 days short of 8 full weeks. Let's believe those 3 days are around 30% of the Week 8 sales and take them out:
Others Sales - 30% of Week 8: 2,019,705 - 60,785 = 1,958,920
The Others regions aren't just Europe, but also Oceania, Africa and Mainland Asia. Sure, Africa and Continental Asia don't count for much in console sales, but Oceania has Australia and New Zealand, and let's not forget about the dozens of european coutries that Activision failed to mention for it's 7 Million figure.
Now it's a matter estimating how much is the share of UK, Germany, Italy, France and Benelux combined is in the Others. Satoru Iwata, Ninty's Boss, claims that the U.K., Germany, France, and Spain represent 75-80% of the full European market for Handhelds. However, if it were the PC or Console sales only it would've a bit different, since PC has more popularity in many countries outside those, and I think handhelds are seen more as a luxury than consoles. Furthermore, VGChartz's Others include Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Africa. So let's think the countries Activision said is about 65% of Others:
Others - 35%: 1,958,920 - 685,622 = 1,273,298
In the end we get: 3,315,786 + 1,273,298 = 4,589,084
That means Call of Duty 4 sold slightly less than 4.6 millions copies on PS360 out of those 7 millions.
Now onto the main question: What about Call of Duty 4? How did it do on PC?
I have always defended it sold much more than most think. In the beginning everytime I saw PC Top Sellers on Retail, there it was, COD4 selling better than World of Warcraft and Sims 2 in it's first few months, and even after a year it was still around the same pace as those juggernauts... but there was one big difference: COD4 was THE juggernaut in digital distribution, a market that both Blizzard and Maxis barely touched but big enough for indie developers to flourish and Popcap to crap gold nuggets. Infinity Ward's baby dominated Steam and Direct2Drive for months and fiercely clashed with The Orange Box, Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike: Source for the top spot, often victorious.
What does this mean? It means PC sold over 2.4 millions in a few countries, in less than 2 months and not even counting digital sales. If the Digital-to-Retail ratio were true then (we don't know), it would mean COD4 would've sold 66% more with the digital sales for a total of 3.7 millions in just 7 markets. But we don't know how digital sales are, so let's not touch this matter again.
When you think about it, Starcraft 1 sold 1.5 millions in 9 months WORLDWIDE, while COD4 sold 2.2 millions in only 7 markets, not counting the Eastern European countries, Scandinavian countries, Russia, South Korea, Australia/New Zealand, etc... and we certainly couldn't see how those legs performed, although it still was one of the best PC sellers in 2008, Retail and Digital, and still selling in 2009.
Sure it may not be as low as just 1 million copies, but it sure as heck isn't anywhere near what you think it is either. Rampant piracy made sure of that. I'd say at best the PC version has about 3-4 million actual retail/dd sales total.
