Top 20 Best Selling PC Games In 2008

GothicGothicness said:

Remove Blizzard and the PC is dead.

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No, remove Blizzard and there would be other companies on that list.
More than 20 titles sold last year, I'm sure - this is just the TOP 20. And as others have mentioned, this doesn't count online sales

I still find it surprising the Diablo & Warcraft battle chests are still selling so well after all this time, hehe.

I wonder how far out of the top 20 Mass Effect landed.

Also, with Fallout 3's success, I wonder how many copies of Fallout 1 & 2 were purchased online (both on sale at Gogamers.com for $5.99 each with some downloadable extras (soundtrack, wallpapers, etc.).

GothicGothicness said:

Fallout 3 is the only game, which did not sell because you need a key to play online ?

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There is no online play for Fallout 3 - it's single player only.

What strikes me is the lack of innovation in the most popular games - WoW, CoD, The Sims etc have been rehashing the same old formula for ages. Clearly the "mass market" has little stomach for anything new or innovative. Spore could have been interesting, but in the end it was nothing exceptional (although technically it was quite sexy). Other than that, it seems most publishers/studios are content to hunker down and churn out the same stale ideas... people buy these titles due to a lack of choice, right? ... right? OK, back to VtM...ho hum.

Myrthos said:

According to NPD the top 20 best selling PC games in the US for 2008 (without online sales) are:
1. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
2. Spore
3. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest
4. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
5. Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning
6. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
7. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
8. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Ed
9. Fallout 3
10. World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
11. Call Of Duty: World At War
12. The Sims 2 FreeTime
13. World Of Warcraft
14. Sins Of A Solar Empire
15. Warcraft III Battle Chest
16. The Sims 2 Apartment Life
17. Crysis
18. Left 4 Dead
19. Diablo Battle Chest
20. The Orange Box
More information.

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booboo said:

[...] Other than that, it seems most publishers/studios are content to hunker down and churn out the same stale ideas... people buy these titles due to a lack of choice, right? ... right? OK, back to VtM...ho hum.

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That's the big question.
Is there really a lack of choice? 1200+ games are coming out every year. I'm quite the cynic - I think the masses want sequels more than innovation. Otherwise the few innovative games out there would be hugely successful through word of mouth.

booboo said:

What strikes me is the lack of innovation in the most popular games - WoW, CoD, The Sims etc have been rehashing the same old formula for ages. Clearly the "mass market" has little stomach for anything new or innovative.

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I'm pretty sure it wasn't the mass market that cried foul when they changed the formula so drastically for Fallout 3 compared to its predecessors.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
Fallout 3 is the only game, which did not sell because you need a key to play online ?
There is no online play for Fallout 3 - it's single player only.

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Yes that's what I said. Most of the other games sold well, because you need a key to play online, thus it cannot be pirated.

Gorath said:

I'm quite the cynic - I think the masses want sequels more than innovation. Otherwise the few innovative games out there would be hugely successful through word of mouth.

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I tend to agree. With the exception of Little Big Planet.
If that reaches "the masses", of course.

Edit: And I'd really like to see the EU sales ... If there exists such a list ...

Was LBP a commercial success? I love that game.

JemyM said:

Was LBP a commercial success? I love that game.

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No - disappointing sales.

Gorath said:

That's the big question.
Is there really a lack of choice? 1200+ games are coming out every year. I'm quite the cynic - I think the masses want sequels more than innovation. Otherwise the few innovative games out there would be hugely successful through word of mouth.

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You are right of course. But that has nothing to do with games, but is just how humans are wired. Just look at tv shows or movies or even books.

I also have to say, that I'm not the least different. There are some series, I want to play / see / read about a lot more than I actually can.

Considering the time I have for games these days, I am more interested in a sequel to a piece I loved, than testing something new and risk wasting my limited life to find out that it was nothing more than a frustrating waste of my time.

Since movies are mentioned would movie industry look healthy if top20 best selling movies list of 2008 would consist mainly of 5-10 years old movies and sequels?

Also since games industry in general has grown a huge lot during the whole decade (its suppose to be bigger than movies even?) then were are the new pc games? Shouldnt there be more and better pc games available?

I dont know about the rest of the world but here pc sales are in decline according to the statics. So the growth could be only because of mmos like wow and mainstream/casual console games sales.

PC gaming is not dead but many of its genres has died or are barely alive compare to what they used to be in the 90s. This includes space sims, mainstream (tb) strategy games, tank/sub/flight/mech simulators* and mainstream adventure games.

Funny thing is that many of these dead genres are been brought back by russians. Their gaming industry is so young that they are still able to make all kinds of games. I just hope they age slowly.

Ive been waiting for eons for new mech simulator like mechwarrior or earthsiege. The console ones are all action games not simulators. With games industry growing each year I would expect it to happen sooner or later but so far nothing.

Perhaps the 90s games were all for niche of nerds and only now the games industry has found its "true" audience.

zakhal said:

Also since games industry in general has grown a huge lot during the whole decade (its suppose to be bigger than movies even?) then were are the new pc games? Shouldnt the be more and better pc games available? I dont know about the rest of the world but here pc sales are in decline according to the statics.

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That reads like a business plan, the part that's usually titled, "Market Opportunity." Add some details, quote a respected consulting firm's analysis to confirm it and paint a picture of how you intend to take advantage. Then toot your own horn a little and ask for money, and you're done.

zakhal said:

Since movies are mentioned would movie industry look healthy if top20 best selling movies list of 2008 would consist mainly of 5-10 years old movies and sequels?

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Well here are the top 10 for 2008 I found at
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Years/2008/top-grossing

531,026,626 The Dark Knight (2008)
318,298,180 Iron Man (2008)
317,011,114 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
227,946,274 Hancock (2008)
223,806,889 WALL·E (2008)
215,395,021 Kung Fu Panda (2008)
181,448,642 Twilight (2008/I)
177,495,192 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)
167,535,553 Quantum of Solace (2008)
154,529,187 Horton Hears a Who! (2008)

It terms of original IP, it looks very similar to the game list to me. I think the similarities between the movie industry and game industry run very deep.

zzajin said:

Well here are the top 10 for 2008 I found at
http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Years/2008/top-grossing

531,026,626 The Dark Knight (2008)
318,298,180 Iron Man (2008)
317,011,114 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
227,946,274 Hancock (2008)
223,806,889 WALL·E (2008)
215,395,021 Kung Fu Panda (2008)
181,448,642 Twilight (2008/I)
177,495,192 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)
167,535,553 Quantum of Solace (2008)
154,529,187 Horton Hears a Who! (2008)

It terms of original IP, it looks very similar to the game list to me. I think the similarities between the movie industry and game industry run very deep.

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True there are som deep similarities with ip/sequels , but there are also deep differences. Atleast half of the movies are non-sequels and non of them are 5-10 years old. Also the movie list does not have a group of movie series controlling ten different spots like cod, wow and sims do in the top games list. 50% of the top20 games list is controlled by just three different game series. Wow alone has 40% of the top10.

It would be interesting to see longer lists though - top10/20 is kinda short for this kind of speculation. Also comparison to top console games list might be a good addition. And lists from more than one year with variations like how many different genres in the top. But somthing like that is impossible to get.