Why lower video game sales don’t always mean a flop

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For years, there was a rhythm to the annual release of the world’s best-selling video game series. Publisher Activision would announce the latest Call of Duty with a trailer in the commercial break of a big sporting event, pad the following months with incremental reveals about flashy single-player stories and increasingly elaborate multiplayer modes, host a blowout launch party, and the next day, celebrate with a press release announcing the latest record-breaking sales figures.

In the past, ‘Call of Duty’ enjoyed record-breaking sales figures

Modern Warfare 2 sold 4.7 million copies in a single day back in 2009 — at the time, it was the most successful video game release to date. Then, a year later, Black Ops outdid it. Last holiday season, Call of Duty: Black Ops III earned $550 million in its first three days. It wasn’t the biggest game launch — that crown belongs to Grand Theft Auto V. But it bested every other entertainment launch in 2015. It also led Activision to trumpet its sales figures just days after release as proof the franchise could still outsell (on the short term) even the largest Hollywood blockbusters.

That wasn’t the case for Call of Duty in 2016.

The rhythm of the most recent COD iteration, Infinite Warfare, was off from the start. Its YouTube announcement trailer — showing futuristic space combat that felt alien to fans of the series’ gritty wartime aesthetic — became the most downvoted game trailer in YouTube’s history this past summer. You can blame a troll campaign in part for those votes, but the game’s steady march toward the future has resulted in mixed results in the past, both critically and financially, so there was reason to worry.

When the game came out on November 4th to lukewarm reviews, Activision kept its cards close to its chest. Now, a month later, the company is still only willing to say that Infinite Warfare has been the most successful console game of the year, and only when speaking to US physical retail sales. Other big holiday games, too, have been rumored to miss expectations. Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs 2 is said to have vastly underperformed in the UK, while industry watchers suspect Electronic Arts’ Titanfall 2 is being aggressively discounted for the holidays due to poor launch performance.


Watch Dogs 2

Ubisoft

We don’t know for sure how the games actually performed, and we won’t for quite some time. Unlike film openings, cable television premieres, or album releases, the success of game launches are carefully guarded secrets. Publishers often stake quarterly guidance and even long-term financial success on games that sometimes take years to craft. So when those games fall short post-release, it’s in those companies’ best interest to say nothing and try to course correct behind closed doors. There is no Nielsen or box office report or some other third-party entity to shed light on performance. And worse, the industry still lacks a holistic sales-measurement system that includes both physical and digital.