deismanj

July 27, 2009 at 10:53am

I think everyone is missing the real pont to these numbers, especially big corporate game producers.  As far as I am aware, EVERY game on that list can be pirated in some shape or form, and are, however they are still selling in outrageous numbers.  This is proof that DRM should be outlawed, it doesn't work and it's clearly not needed.

Morete

July 26, 2009 at 9:53am

The Sims are nothing more than a fad.  Passing fad?  Unfortunately not.  The Sims are here to stay at least for several years.  A lot of the sales of Sims games are due to word of mouth advertising in social realms within grade schools, middle schools, high schools and universities.  If you're in one of these schools, and a group of "cool" classmates are bragging about this fun game they have, all of their peers are sure to follow.  They buy the game, play it just enough to know what it's about, report back to their alpha peer group, throw it on the shelf and there it collects dust until an occasional day of boredom arrives every few months. 

My children bought the Sims following suit of the majority.  Sims on the monitor hasn't been seen in a while now.  Usually it's the gunshots and explosions of FPS games like Combat Arms that can be heard throughout the day vibrating the walls of the house.

MaxFan

July 26, 2009 at 7:56am

These kind of numbers ONLY represent the BB/Wallyweirld/GameSchlock crowd.  At the bottom of the Gamasutra article:

"...In addition, NPD tracks only U.S. retail numbers;"

Will why would you allow such brick and mortar store propaganda to grace your magazine or website?  I as a reader of both the mag and the website would love to see biased disinformation that supports only one side of the capitalist dream (aka brick and mortar propaganda) to simply be eliminated from content.  If you are going to publish numbers from games sales US Retail then please also publish numbers from worldwide etail.  NO SERIOUS GAMERS BUY RETAIL (and even if they did they would not admit to it).  NONE.  NOT ONE.  So what you get when you publish gamasutras or NPD's crap loaded numbers are the schmo's who buy at Wallywerid.  These are NOT representative of the actuall PC gamer community.  That same PC that is two out of three of the initials of my favorite technology publication.  That said the numbers on the sims at first blush are impressive but when you realize the number of sales from VALVE/STEAM and online stores I would be willing to bet that SIMS3 takes a hike to the middle of the pack. 

Those numbers that you keep regurgitating are simply the results that retailers have and want you to see to shore up their less than 50% share of the gaming market.  They realize they are on the way out of the market and use these numbers not as any kind of accurate judge of what game is selling the best but more to provide themselves with a sense of relevance.

SIMS3 is I suppose (not being of the persuasion that thinks decorating a home mowing the lawn going to work in short al the banality of day to day life is a good Idea for escaping from reality, Ive never indulged in that game ) a good game.  It wouldnt sell etail otherwise.  However, I cannot help but wonder how many of those copies in Sold at BB/Wallyweird/GameSchlock are opened up with great enthusiasm installed, and come to find out it wont work on their crappy five year old pc?  Then rather than admit technological ignorance and return the game they simply throw it in the drawer with all the other games they cant play? 

   

maniacm0nk3y

July 25, 2009 at 6:25pm

I will never understand how you can get enjoyment about a game like this. Your life isn't optimal so you play a game about it?

More600

July 25, 2009 at 11:11am

Interesting enough but to be expected with the Sims 3.  Look how long the Sims 2 has been on the top 20.  Bestbuy and walmart are the ones that most of these games are sold from.. Of cousse i feel bad for the poor saps that purchased the sims 3 and found out they cant play it or it is god awful slow on there system. LMAO. WOW just sucks. I am not paying for a game every month its like a credit card.

noobstix

July 25, 2009 at 10:21am

Maybe all of those who got their hands on leaked copies of The Sims 3 contributed to those 800,000+ sales.  I'm also surprised to see the Battle Chests for SC and Diablo up there.  I'd figure by now, there were "enough" players on BNet.

armada439

July 25, 2009 at 9:20am

Blizzard is invincible - 7 out of 20

Devo85x

July 25, 2009 at 7:21am

Could it be that almost all of these games are sold at walmart?  It could just be that people are buying them but dont actually know if they can play them?

mesiah

July 25, 2009 at 3:25am

Whats more surprising is that sims 2 took the number 3 spot. And 3 out of the top 10 were world of warcraft. Number 7 and 5 being the original copies of the 5 year old MMO. Pretty impressive for both sims and wow imo.

Digital-Storm

July 24, 2009 at 10:49pm

Because online sales don't go into the count, and also because there was no other good game released this month.