perfect example that illustrates that although a game/movie/musical artist is popular this doesnt nessarily mean its the best or even good for that matter.

Just like Britney Spears

Wow is a yawn fest....

I will eventually get this game, maybe later this year

I resisted WoW until 2 weeks. I'm not a huge RPG fan, but decided to give it a shot as there isn't anything on my radar for like 2/5 months (Assassins Creed, R6 Vegas 2, and Far Cry 2.) I have to admit its great. Which is saying something for a game thats going on 3 years old!

I can't say I'm not supprised to see Crysis on this. It was kind of a "niche" shooter, for those with the tech to run it. Best shooter of the year in my opinion though (Biochock is 2nd.) COD 4 was like every other COD game, just with a new paint job (for single player anyway.)

The "casual" PC games always outsell the hardcore games though. Many more casual players then hard core players (unfortunalty.)

Thank god I didn't get into any Sim's games. Theres too many now from when it first started (seems like hundreds to me) & would've cost me a fortune plus I would need a spare room just to put all the games in

Just wondering how many Sim games are there in total including all those expansion packs & how much did it cost to buy them all to date?

I just had to check one of those download sites. The illigal once. I was looking at the Call of Duty 4 game, its been downloaded more then 1 million times. Downloading really needs to stop. If not, publisher can just drop the PC market at all

agree with jansdman. i dont play wow anymore but its aimed at the masses. its a game that is designed to give the player ease and it provides more freedom than all other popular mmorpgs. warhammer seems more hardcore and likely to get the existing daoc players, but i really cant see a huge ammount of wow players leaving for it. if anything they'll leave out of curiosity then return to wow

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Lol @ osleyee. You think your warhammer will beat WoW? Please don't eat too much sweet it affects your brain IMO.

I was lead to believe that Sims 3 was set to be released next year - 09. There's plenty of life in the current incarnation and I can't see EA spending on the next version when the old one is doing so well.

Sims isn't goign to die anytime soon, i think it will be a tight race this year, Sims 3 vs New WoW Expansion? vs Spore? vs Battlefield 3 (possible) Lookin good lignup for EA next year

I added up the total amount of money I spent on WOW since january 2005, when I got the game. The game, Expansion, Monthly fee, T-shirts, Custom keyboard, Binders, Strategy Guides, and Atlas. It came out to be over $650 not including tax. But it's been worth it because I spend a lot less than what I would have spent on other things. And I have a huge backlog of games that I haven't finished. I now play WOW on my PC, my wife's PC, My laptop, and my 42" Plasma TV (hooked up to my laptop VIA hdmi)

WOW is what I always go back to when I get bored with "other" "so called" "modern" games. Got bored with Bioshock in about 5 hours. Crysis took me about 15 minutes to get bored. (I'll buy it later to use as a tech DEMO for my next build) Witcher was ok (Uncensored of course).

A lot of my purchases have been through Stardock Central though. The Whole Galactic Civ Series, and the Beta of Sins of a Solar Empire. You Purchase the download from them and they send you a retail box when the game is released. Though I've yet to actually use any of the CDs.

I've also bought a lot of stuff through Steam.

When NPD starts using DATA from Download sites, then and only then can we get a clear picture.

My Wife and daughters love the Sims and they get every expansion that comes out. They love it. (Though right now they are playing Wii and Viva Pinata pretty heavily.) Plus my oldest daughter loves to play her characters on WOW. (I came very close to get her her own account so we could play together.) Right now on the PC there's either Cookie Cutter Shooters and RTSs. Then there's WOW and Sims. And all the Pirates love Shooters and RTSs. What do you think is going to sell retail?

What's your game?

I am not surprise that the World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion was number one after all the dominate the mmorpg market. I am not trying to make argument but wait and see when war warhammer online reckoning is release ea is going to dominate world of warcraft is going to lose alot of their subcrbers.

This list is basically useless as it only tracks a small percentage of actual copies sold. Online stores are not even counted. It gives the impression that some lame games are actually top sellers.

EA has 6 of the Top 10, Impressive

@kaziechameleon Agreed, it would have been nice to see some of those titles. But most games will make a majority of their sales in the first few months so the previous years titles may not show up. Crysis shot itself in the foot by its huge system requirements. However, as people begin to upgrade, it may still sell well in the long run. Another thing to keep in mind is that NPD doesn't track online purchases (like those from Steam) so Orange Box is doing better than this list indicates.

wow. Game released in 2003 has made the list. That's awesome!

SIMCITY OWNES ALL!

i still can't believe some of the games on there, i guess that it's all about who was on the shelves the longest but i still thought that one of the fall titles from last year might make it. aside from cod4, like say orange box, witch probably sold huge on steam, or how about crysis?

SIM CITY 4! Can't wait for 5.

Pretty low numbers for a whole year.

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'gforcefan' actually they do include the digital distribution too. When you see these things you realize how widespread piracy is. Crysis didn't even make the list. Sure many people can't handle it on very high, but when you check the amount of people online playing crysis the number is always 200,000+. It makes you question how righteous gamers are these days

One think that many don't seem to understand is that these lists do not include digital distribution. So steam, direct2drive, digital rivers, etc. are not included in these figures.

Also, developers make a higher percent per game sold than on console titles - so they still make enough money for it to be worthwhile.

crysis has a better single player but COD4 has better multiplayer

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crysis is a system hog, not everyone can afford a freakin super computer to run that thing, plus call of duty 4 is 10X better.

I'm so sad. These numbers don't hold a candle to console game sales. Bioshock isn't even in the top ten, nor is Crysis.

Heh, not surprised my initial comment got rated down. Nope, I'm not kidding. I don't mean to be inflammatory or System Wars-like. I honestly want to see PC gaming succeed. I want to play good games, regardless of platform. But these numbers aren't encouraging, at all.

According to VG Chartz' estimates, in 2007, in America alone:
- Halo 3 sold 4.9 million
- CoD4 sold 3.7 million across two platforms
- Mario Galazy sold 2.6 million
- Guitar Hero 3 sold 5.1 million across several platforms

And the list goes on. Hence my initial surprise that the PC has only one million seller, and an expansion pack at that. To a publisher looking at these figures, they would observe (quite correctly) that the console market is where they should spend their time and money.

Crysis isn't on here because of its crazy system requirements. Yes, many of us folk posting here on GS might be hardcore enough to keep our PCs up-to-date, but the average gamer won't have the horsepower to run it.

why do people buy expansions to the sims. if you need a new expansion ever week to keep a game interesting maybe you should find another game to play.

good question, who does play these sims games?
people expect me to get bored of wow but noone seems to get bored of the sims?

Go call of duty

Wow. World of Warcraft toppedd??????.

"That left just two spots in the top 10 for publishers not named EA or Blizzard. Activision claimed the fourth position on the charts with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare"

Activision and Vivendi merged-are going to merge
and Vivendi owns Blizzard too
so as far as I am concerned there is only one game on this list not owned by either EA or Vivendi...

I don't think I'll take this report seriously btw....

Wow, EA rules these charts.

I still can't figure out who actually plays these Sims games... I think EA buys their own games in mass quantities to boost sales figures.... And the only reason Crysis didn't make the list is cuz people like me don't have a good enough computer to really enjoy it (though I admit it plays GREAT and looks GREATER)

when's the sims 3 coming out?

It's so one-sided near the top, it's not even funny.

Call of Duty 4 sure did sell a hell of a lot considering it was released towards the end of the year.

hmm cod4 sold 383k copies in 2 months thats like arnd 190k copies a month......crysis was released on 16th of november an it sold 86k copies in 14 days.....so i guess it must have sold around 200k copies by the end of december.....mebbe thats y it dint make the list

Honestly though.. who wasn't expecting World of Warcraft to yet again dominate the PC games list.

Where's Crysis?

God people, play something else...there's so many games out there and you all play WOW and Sims 2?? I stopped playing WOW and I have so much fun catching up on games I didn't ever buy because I was playing that instead...seriously, there are so many better games out there.

Now lets see if the next WoW expansion or Spore can do the same thing; if either ever come out this year.

Every year WoW and The Sims dominate these charts and they are both sold online. Next year I am sure it will be the same.

Wow, I'm surprised to see Sim City 4 on that list

on this list, the biggest mistake i made was C&C3, totaly !
and my friends error was to buy Age of Empires 3 because 1 week later he wasn't playing it

and even if i played wow and quitted it, i won' t say it was a mistake to play it (like so many people do for no reason) because i am able to look back and see that i had fun, even if the fun started to slow down later on

Lol londonrider, +1

It looks like they have to merge Sims with Warcraft: World of Simcraft 2: Burning Voyage Expansion pack -- Vivendi Electronics

Woot C&C3 got 5th place!

There's a shocker.