2009 Top Sales Out

Guess who made the top 10?

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The list of the 10 top-selling PC games of 2009 is dominated by two companies, Blizzard and Maxis.

Reporting agency NPD released the sales rankings for retail PC games in 2009. At the top of the list was Sims 3, followed by World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. The list is then populated with various incarnations of those two series until Modern Warfare 2 comes in at #5 and Spore (also by Maxis) at #8 and Dragon Age at #9. In general though, retail PC sales dropped 23 percent in 2009, which is higher than the 11% drop in software sales in the gaming as a whole. PC retail sales could have been affected by the rise of digital distribution on the platform.

"When we started the last decade, video game industry sales, including PC games, totaled $7.98B in 2000," said Anita Frazier, analyst at the NPD Group. "In ten years, the industry has changed dramatically in many ways, but most importantly it was grown over those years by more than 250 percent at retail alone. Considering there are many new sources of revenue including subscriptions and digital distribution, industry growth is even more impressive."

Here is the full list of the top 10 selling PC games at retail in 2009:

1. The Sims 3 (Electronic Arts)
2. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Blizzard, Activision)
3. The Sims 2: Double Deluxe (Electronic Arts)
4. World of Warcraft Battle Chest (Blizzard, Activision)
5. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward, Activision)
6. World of Warcraft (Blizzard, Activision)
7. The Sims 3: World Adventures (Electronic Arts)
8. Spore (Maxis, Electronic Arts)
9. Dragon Age: Origins (BioWare, Electronic Arts)
10. Empire: Total War (The Creative Assembly, Sega)

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http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...Sales-for-2009

Good job CA, no more whining from Mr. Simpson please. :laugh4:

EDIT: Considering that there are no RTSus up there, that makes ETW the biggest selling RTS last year.

:inquisitive:

the fact that the most amazing RPG ever only reached #9 because of the scary amount of people buying the sims 3, scares me. alot.

and holy crap! ETW at #10? ERROR. THIS UNIT HAS SUFFERED A METAPHYSICAL DICHOTOMY AND HAS SHUT DOWN.

So much for laying guilt trips on us! oh noes the bad posts are effecting sales, just wow. I wonder if we will get an apology now? :clown:

and holy crap! Activion or Blizzard owns the other! O.O

To be fair, Dragon Age should be up higher if we go by popularity as it only came out in Q4 2009.

Yeah, it is funny Dragon Age is so high considering it basically just came out at the very end of last year. Sims 3 for example has been out for the year.

What is worse, is the number of WoW copies.

ETW could possibly be even higher, as the NPD only tracks physical retail sails and excludes Steam purchases like my own (which Valve keeps secret).

How the **** did Spore make it onto the top ten? I thought it bombed. Wow, I guess I'm really out of it.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

How the **** did Spore make it onto the top ten? I thought it bombed. Wow, I guess I'm really out of it.

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I would've thought that Call of Duty 2 would be at the top of the list. Huh.

Though what's crazy is that that list is dominated by Sims and Warcraft (AKA Blizzard and EA)

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ETW could possibly be even higher, as the NPD only tracks physical retail sails and excludes Steam purchases like my own (which Valve keeps secret).

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Dude that means that Call of duty 2 could be even higher.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

How the **** did Spore make it onto the top ten? I thought it bombed. Wow, I guess I'm really out of it.

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It did but a lot of people bought it... :no:

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

It did but a lot of people bought it... :no:

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Seems to be the name of the game these days :embarassed:

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Originally Posted by nameless

Dude that means that Call of duty 2 could be even higher.

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:dizzy2:

Well, Sims 3 I can understand, but WoW is like 5 years old for someone's sake!
Blizzard's golden cash calf... :sweatdrop:

cash calf? I think theyve got a couple of cash herds by now!

interesting list , it may reflect how female gamers are now quite common .

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Originally Posted by mountaingoat

interesting list , it may reflect how female gamers are now quite common .

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It shows that casual gamers don't have the time or know-how to pirate games.

Parents buying not M-rated Gifts maybe?

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Originally Posted by Graphic

It shows that casual gamers don't have the time or know-how to pirate games.

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What makes you say that? CoD:MW2 was allegedly highly pirated but it's still on the list.

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Originally Posted by Graphic

It shows that casual gamers don't have the time or know-how to pirate games.

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Is there something wrong with buying a computer game legitmately?

There's nothing to brag about when it comes to pirating a game.

You buy it you buy it. People who pirate are those who mainly don't ever buy the games in the first place.

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Originally posted by antisocialmunky
Good job CA, no more whining from Mr. Simpson please.

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He wasn't whining for that, but so that he won't have to whine if NTW doesn't make it in the top ten of 2010.

Buy the game, it is playable and on schedule and it will have something for everyone. Its all good and well, just relax and buy.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

Parents buying not M-rated Gifts maybe?

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Parents responsibly buying games for their kids that aren't violent? surely you jest?

Well, in my epxerience aunts/uncles/grandparents usually ahve time to think about their gift purchases so I guess realtives not parents then.

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Originally Posted by nameless

Is there something wrong with buying a computer game legitmately?

There's nothing to brag about when it comes to pirating a game.

You buy it you buy it. People who pirate are those who mainly don't ever buy the games in the first place.

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How was I bragging? It's just a fact. Hardcore PC nerds know where to find games illegally how to use them. Casual gamers in their 30s and 40s who play The Sims on their work laptop and buy Nancy Drew games for their kids don't. I'm against piracy and legally own every single TW title ever released, down to all of ETW's DLC. This is just a fact of the PC gaming industry these days.

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Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good

What makes you say that? CoD:MW2 was allegedly highly pirated but it's still on the list.

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That one's easy: multiplayer is the primary draw of MW2, so people who want that experience have to buy, while all the broke people will steal it for singleplayer and just leave it at that.

Big, popular games will still make money, they're just not going to beat games on the charts that are played by casual players without the time or idea of how to pirate

*edit*

I should elaborate that this only accounts for part of the reason crap like The Sims dominates sales charts (which only count retail brick-and-mortar store sales), the rest of it being the emergence of digital distribution. I personally haven't bought a game from somewhere besides Steam in years.

In summary: hardcore PC gamers don't buy games at Best Buy, they buy them on Steam or on internet retailers, or (unfortunately) pirate them.

Piracy magnitude is proportional to sales though.

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How was I bragging? It's just a fact. Hardcore PC nerds know where to find games illegally how to use them. Casual gamers in their 30s and 40s who play The Sims on their work laptop and buy Nancy Drew games for their kids don't. I'm against piracy and legally own every single TW title ever released, down to all of ETW's DLC. This is just a fact of the PC gaming industry these days.

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I doubt that every hardcore PC nerd out there pirates games just as many casual gamers not pirate games. Are you a hardcore PC nerd or a casual gamer?

Like I said, there are those that will buy games and there are those who will never buy one to begin with anyways. It doesn't take a genius to know how to pirate a game and obtain it illegally.

The actual fact with PC games is the rise of digital distribution which many companies are taking advantage of to get as many consumers as possible meaning that these numbers do not truly represent the sales figures.

Your argument is funny though.

I recall people crying and whining on twcenter about how CA had to "dumb down" their games for the casual gamers to make it open to as many as possible. Especially points about how "casual gamers" are ruining the total war games yet by your argument these "casual gamers" are the ones that help pay the bills.

It's true that the typical casual gamer is more or less some guy/girl that works for a living and plays games on a now and then basis.

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Originally Posted by nameless

I doubt that every hardcore PC nerd out there pirates games just as many casual gamers not pirate games. Are you a hardcore PC nerd or a casual gamer?

Like I said, there are those that will buy games and there are those who will never buy one to begin with anyways. It doesn't take a genius to know how to pirate a game and obtain it illegally.

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Where did I say "every"? Of course EVERY SINGLE hardcore PC gamer doesn't pirate everything. Please don't try to make my argument look ridiculous by exaggerating my claims. Not every hardcore PC gamer pirates everything, but a far greater percentage of them do than casual gamers.

Given the option people will more often than not get it for free, which is why the music industry pretty much took a nosedive. Downloading mp3s is fast and easy; it's a couple MB and all you have to do is double click on the mp3 and then you're listening to it. Compare that to downloading a 8-16 GB PC game and then trying to install it and get around DRM.

It's not rocket science to kids who grew up with computers, but it is to 39 year old Mr. Smith who likes to play Peggle now and again on his laptop, and he wouldn't leave his laptop sitting idle downloading massive amounts of files anyway. So the games he and guys like him purchase sell tons. And he has a little crappy laptop so he's not even in the market for something like Dragon Age.

For nerds who have built their own monster rig, know how to open their ports for uTorrent and can explain what RAID is, it's as easy as downloading an mp3. For them it's just there, so a lot of them just take it, because they can. The people who would even be interested in playing a game like Dragon Age and have the PC to run it are much much more likely to know how to pirate it than your Zuma playing Aunt does.

This is just common sense, my friend.

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The actual fact with PC games is the rise of digital distribution which many companies are taking advantage of to get as many consumers as possible meaning that these numbers do not truly represent the sales figures.

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It's both. I already brought this up (twice) so I don't know why you're bringing it up again to counter my argument.