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US PC Charts Apr. 26-May 2: Lich King continues reign

Blizzard's second World of Warcraft expansion again secures top billing during uneventful week for NPD's retail PC sales.

The NPD Group today delivered its recap of PC game sales in the US for the week of April 26 to May 2, revealing yet another stagnant week on the retail charts. In fact, matched up against the prior week's results, there was only minimal movement in the top five slots on the PC game charts, as World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King again led competitors The Sims 2 Double Deluxe, Left 4 Dead, World of Warcraft: Battle Chest, and Empire: Total War, in that order.

The back half of NPD's weekly PC game recap did see some movement, however. World of Warcraft gained two slots to finish sixth, while the recently released Fallout Trilogy--which contains the original Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel--charted for the first time at seventh. Demigod slipped into the eighth slot this week, as The Sims 2 Apartment Life and Spore again rounded out the week in ninth and 10th, respectively.

Week of April 26-May 2, 2009*
TITLE - PUBLISHER - AVERAGE PRICE
1) World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Activision Blizzard - $32
2) The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - EA - $20
3) Left 4 Dead - EA - $29
4) World of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Activision Blizzard - $39
5) Empire: Total War - Sega - $50
6) World of Warcraft - Activision Blizzard - $20
7) Fallout Trilogy - 3 Pack - Interplay - $20
8) Demigod - Stardock - $39
9) The Sims 2 Apartment Life - EA - $20
10) Spore - EA - $50

* The above chart reflects the NPD Group's sales data drawn from a cross-sampling of retailers nationwide. Therefore, it does not include game sales through nontraditional channels such as digital distribution.

37 Comments

  • ramadhanbilly

    Posted Jul 27, 2009 2:32 am PT

    how to download this game?

  • Zarcon94

    Posted May 15, 2009 12:17 am PT

    I agree with you Headrock. I haven't seen many good games lately, with just a few exceptions. I've been busy playing old, ORIGINAL games. Hearts of Iron 2 ftw!

  • ryaz_weaponx

    Posted May 14, 2009 11:44 pm PT

    Wow reigns supreme again............no suprise.Wish this game was available in India. All we get is the pirated version.damn.

  • HeadrockBeats

    Posted May 14, 2009 4:18 pm PT

    There's one very simple problem with WoW, which is completely unrelated to everything that's been said about it here so far. It's the fact that one game has basically captivated half of the population of players in the western world, eating up such a large share of the market that it has become the leading contributor to the general lack of other, more interesting games. Naturally, publishers interpret this to mean that nothing can compete with WoW and so they don't even bother risking exploration of other gaming avenues, instead relying on whatever is sure to make money anyway (I.E. shooter/action clones).

    In other words, WoW may be a great game, but it has singlehandedly caused stagnation throughout the entire industry on which it thrives. So the result is that people will keep playing WoW for several more years while the game industry sinks into oblivion. Take one look at the list - there are three WoW titles there (which are all actually just one single game and its extra content), two belong to another game (The Sims 2 and its extra content). Spore is all about extra content, and has been on the list almost forever. Soon we'll be seeing two or three "Fallout 3" representatives replacing Empire and Demigod...

    Does this seem like a healthy, multi-faceted, thriving industry to any of you?

  • Go_Away_Kid

    Posted May 14, 2009 12:15 pm PT

    @Barighm
    I don't play WoW, except for one week when I was trying it out. It's just not my type of game. However, just wanted to say that you brought up some good points. Guess I can't hate on the majority of you guys anymore, lol.

  • FidelSarcastro

    Posted May 14, 2009 11:35 am PT

    @Fandango_Letho

    Ouch, pardon me if I hurt your e-feelings. I guess I can assume what side of the equation you are on. Also come on Owned... what a marvelous comeback, surprised that you didn't resort to using 733t sp33k. so cutos to you.

  • Barighm

    Posted May 14, 2009 11:01 am PT

    At least every fifth person I've met in WoW is married and has a family, and almost everyone has a full-time job. 3-hours sessions, at least 3-5 times a week, will get you to Lv.80 in a month or so, and there is nothing "anti-social" or "anti-activity" about spending HALF the time most people use to watch TV to play WoW.

    So enough with the ignorant comments. The people who play to the point where they have no life except WoW are rare. Shirk their chores maybe, but that's the worst I've encountered and I met a lot of people during my WoW career.

  • RockySquirrel

    Posted May 14, 2009 10:12 am PT

    WoW is amazing in that people have about as much fun as they want to... bring the right attitude, and you can have fun.

  • _Pedro_

    Posted May 14, 2009 8:59 am PT

    You know what really amazes me? The fact that one of the highest rated pc games before the new point system gets so much hate. Face it people you may not like the game, but World of Warcraft is amazing in what it does.

  • Fandango_Letho

    Posted May 14, 2009 8:50 am PT

    @ashalldredge

    judging people like that is wrong. Most WoW players are casual and play a couple of months, before turning off the account and coming back a couple of months later.

    You and your elitist comment of '' go outside play sport and take girls out '' are ridiculous.

    Between you and me, who gets the girls, huh?

    Owned.

  • FidelSarcastro

    Posted May 14, 2009 7:59 am PT

    oh gosh, WoW is still raking in the cash... boy theres a shocker. I mean come on 11.5 million people are playing WoW, while the rest of us are outside playing sports and talking to members of the opposite sex (emails, game chat, and 1-900 numbers dont count).

  • TheProphetD

    Posted May 14, 2009 7:41 am PT

    Sadly, the only good games on the list are E:TW and L4D.

  • locobarron

    Posted May 14, 2009 5:43 am PT

    I bought a boxed copy of L4D off newegg last week. It was only 27$ with free shipping. I like to have boxed copies so that reinstall is quick and easy and I don't have to download all my games again in the event of a reformat. Plus, 27$ was better than the 40$ that steam was selling it for.

  • HeadrockBeats

    Posted May 14, 2009 5:36 am PT

    You know what we should do? Ban the chart updates - I.E. stop commenting on them. It might work.

  • EmkayXx

    Posted May 14, 2009 4:59 am PT

    30$ For Left 4 Dead. Damn. It's still 100 AUD here =/!!!
    Makes me sad. No wonder there's piracy.

  • Dante200X

    Posted May 14, 2009 4:49 am PT

    "download services like Steam, D2D, GoG.com, etc DO NOT GIVE OUT SALES NUMBERS!!!!!! As long as they don't give out numbers, NPD cannot count them!!!!! So I say AGAIN - Please put pressure on the Steam's of this world to give out numbers - don't just keep asking why NPD only include retail sales"

    Actually Valve has said before they've given NPD their sales numbers from Steam, but (IIRC) they decided not to include it because they wanted ALL digital sales, not just some, before they would include digital distribution sales.

  • Dante200X

    Posted May 14, 2009 4:44 am PT

    "Do people not realize that this doesn't track digital distribution? Who buys boxed copies of pc games anymore? Hell, you can't even buy hard copies of most pc games in stores like gamestop anymore.......Whats the point of a chart like this if you aren't going to show where the majority of sales come from?"

    This times 1000

    Also this:

    "I dont get whats the point of us retail only? Glad that left4dead and fallout are up there. I wonder how much copies left4dead valve sold if it manages to be in top 10 in retail only (let alone DD) since it came out"

    And you have to wonder how many L4D games were sold on those 2 times steam has had a sale for the game.

  • Humorguy_basic

    Posted May 14, 2009 3:32 am PT

    The fallout trilogy pack is a budget title. Most gamers already have one or more of these games. I actually find it worrying that titles like this can get into the chart, because I just cannot believe sales are that high for old titles like this,and what does that mean for the other titles in the chart?! I think this is why sales numbers are not given for PC titles, because I think we would be shocked at how low the numbers were.

    And I say it every week, so i'll say it again, for the benefit of adamosmaki and others, download services like Steam, D2D, GoG.com, etc DO NOT GIVE OUT SALES NUMBERS!!!!!! As long as they don't give out numbers, NPD cannot count them!!!!! So I say AGAIN - Please put pressure on the Steam's of this world to give out numbers - don't just keep asking why NPD only include retail sales!

    Also, I will repeat other facts, NPD DOES include Amazon.com and other online retailers that ship product to the customer, and it's generally accepted that somewhere over 80% of all sales are made through retail both store and web. I personally think it's over 90%, because a) if Steam and others were doing fantastic numbers they would tell us and b) if they were doing big numbers titles like Rome Total War would not be No.1 in their charts at the end of 2008. If 5 year old games can get to No.1 and companies don't give out sales numbers I would be very cautious about saying how much bigger sales would be if downloads were included. And for those that absolutely state games sales would be huge if downloads were included - prey where do you get that information from? After all, look at those titles, they have been around quite a while, and games that are over 8 years old, albeit compilations are now appearing! If old games are selling, what does that say about modern gaming? There's a lot to think about. But if sales totals were given, we could have much more intelligent conversations about these charts. For example. If every game sold 90% less than last week, none of the positions would change and we'd still be having the same conversation. If sales figures showed sales were down 90%, I think our conversation would be slightly different! That's the difference between sales figures and no sales figures.

  • 2bitSmOkEy

    Posted May 14, 2009 3:29 am PT

    Do people not realize that this doesn't track digital distribution? Who buys boxed copies of pc games anymore? Hell, you can't even buy hard copies of most pc games in stores like gamestop anymore.......Whats the point of a chart like this if you aren't going to show where the majority of sales come from?

  • adamosmaki

    Posted May 14, 2009 2:19 am PT

    I dont get whats the point of us retail only? Glad that left4dead and fallout are up there. I wonder how much copies left4dead valve sold if it manages to be in top 10 in retail only (let alone DD) since it came out

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