UK Sales Charts: Everyone Hates Modern Warfare 3, But It's Still Number One

It's no surprise it's number 1. I can't stand the series but there's a mass majority of gamers that just play COD exclusively maybe also with FIFA (or EA FC or whatever it's called now). They pay no attention to warnings or reviews and buy it every year regardless

If you put ***** in a box and call it MW 4 it will still sell so what's new.

For all the crap it's getting, MW3 multiplayer is the most fun it's been since Cold War in 2020. Now rotating between: Spider-man 2, EA WRC, Dirt Rally and MW3 multiplayer.

Yet its launch physical sales are down 25% from the last game, so people are starting to distance themselves from the series. Slowly but surely.

Last year boxed sales were up 42%, this year down 25%, people are voting with their wallets.

Edited.

Has Hogwarts been in the charts since release? If so WB must have serious sales figures, I expected it to sell well but in the top 10 for most if not all of the year is pretty ridiculous, Kudos to them.

@UltimateOtaku91 wrong metric..it's down 25% physical sales. Every single game been down on that metric for years now.. because no one buys physical games anymore..

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

-Recycled dried up rehash franchise

EA Sports FC 24

-By the numbers yearly sports game

Super Mario Bros. Wonder

-Same old mario (would call it a rehash but criticizing nintendo is a sin)

Marvel's Spider-Man 2

-Valid

Football Manager 2024 (PC)

-By the numbers yearly sports game

Nintendo Switch Sports

-Shovelware. Only wii sports is relevant

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

-Preteens we’re babies when this game came out

Hogwarts Legacy

-Valid

Minecraft (Switch)

-Jesus talk about ancient (no pun intended)

Assassin's Creed Mirage

-Do i really need to say anything about this one?

Can't say it's a surprise. It's COD. That fanbase is as loyal as they come and it's a big fanbase. The campaign may be a dumpster fire this year but as long as the MP is at least competent it will always sell very well.

@nomither6 no such thing as 'same old Mario'.

They see me Call-of-Dutyin',
They hatin'

This is why this keeps happening, the general public just likes to endlessly consume slop until the end of time

The drop (and that the past few days will have been boosted by PS5 hardware bundles that won't return because it was tied to the old PS5 model) makes it seem like next week could have a different #1 spot. There are 2 main candidates that could take the spot (Super Mario RPG as it releases on Friday and HL as it releases on Switch tomorrow).

I'm really hoping it's Super Mario RPG that gets #1 and not HL.

@UltimateOtaku91 that's not what the stats are saying, at all. You know the 25% down was physical sales only, as you commented on the article. And we know that physical sales % have been shrinking for years, every year.

Edit: You edited your comment but it still makes no sense as you are still trying to say it sold less physical, so that means people are leaving the game. When it does not mean that at all. You seem desperate to paint COD sales in a bad light, i wonder why?

Just last week Sony revealed they make hardly any revenue from physical sales as a % of total revenue.

Its easy to rag on COD and consider it as 'lowest common denominator' gaming..... but honestly the sales & buzz for this property are probably a good thing for the industry long-term. Likewise for EAFC24 - these annual franchises keep the 'mainstream' playing, and generate ginormous levels of revenue within the gaming sector.

Money keep gaming in the mainstream narrative, as opposed to the perception of it being a niche hobby for a select subculture.

COD/EAFC aren't my thing, but equally lets be appreciative that there is a huge pool of people out there that do enjoy these - and big sales within gaming is a good thing.

2023 has also blessed us with a tremendous assortment of other games - BG3/TOTK/Resi4/Streetfighter/Starfield/LiesOfP/HiFi Rush/SM2/MarioW/CP2077 DLC/FF16 etc... definitely something for everyone

@Sakai last year MW2 launch physical sales were up 42% over the last game, so what's the reason behind that if more people are going to digital?

You can't just have one year of sales being down and blame it on more digital sales if 12 months ago physical sales were up for the previous game.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-2-physical-sales-up-over-40-compared-with-vanguard-uk-boxed-charts

I think people have suddenly discovered why Microsoft has bought the franchise. Free money every year without fail.

@UltimateOtaku91 yes you can, because Vanguard bombed and was widely regarded a terrible product and that is what the 42% increase is comparing it to.

Physical sales were actually down 61% when compared to Modern Warfare 2019 and not Vanguard. Now do you finally see?

It explains most of this in the very article you quoted me mate. Did you read the whole thing and not just the title?

You even edited your original comment again and now it makes even less sense than originally

@DonkeyFantasy I don't think a decent could compete. I don't think even a great one could compete with CoD. Unfortunately, quality =/= sales

@DonkeyFantasy unfortunately, no matter how good a game is, COD will still sell because of its name, people love a popular brand name. Just look at iPhone, they're not the best phone in the world but they sell well because "look at me, I have an iPhone". COD is the same and so was FIFA.

I was surprised to see my brother playing the new Call of Duty recently because he avoided the series for a while to play other things. There was a time in which he only played Call of Duty and nothing else. He told me he only bought it because his friends wanted to play it, so I suppose the social aspect of Call of Duty keeps it selling.

In other news, I have a friend who buys Call of Duty every year without question and has done so for at least a decade. (He is terrible at voting with his wallet in all aspects, so this is not surprising.) He is looking forward to the game coming to Game Pass, so he doesn't need to buy it anymore - exactly what Microsoft wants and deserves.

@CJD87 gaming hasn't been niche for a long time, it makes more money than film and music combined. COD and EAFC are the nadir for the worst, most predatory business practices in the industry. A yearly recycling of content, packed to the gills with microtransactions and fine tuned to hit wallet opening dopamine responses. As for big sales, where does the money go? Is EA and Acti sharing the fortune around and funding smaller, more interesting games? No. It benefits shareholder dividends and re-enforces their belief that gamers are nothing more than wallets who'll buy any old tripe so what's the point of making something new.

@UltimateOtaku91 Time to concede. I think @Sakai has it right. Your hypothesis: "People are buying less CoD and voting with their wallets" is inconclusive, due to a lack of digital data. Sounds like CoD boxed sales are currently down 50%+ since 2019.

@UltimateOtaku91 @Sakai @NotoriousWhiz

Let us revisit this debate after Game Pass tanks Xbox sales, physical and otherwise.

Sounds like it will fit right in on gamepass😂

@TheCollector316 I'm not sure they will mind , as long as people subscribe to gamepass, they are making money. But i am sure Microsoft will be interested to see how it all pans out. I am sure they have smarter people than me monitoring it all and making their decisions.

Personally I don't care how they make their money, as I am a consumer and not a shareholder. That's how we should all be thinking

It seems that a few ppl dont like cod selling now that's it's owned by Microsoft , honestly if you have a problem with this get on to Sony and tell them you want to stop cod on ps then in a few years time when Sony batter everyone that hasn't gone to where cod is with rubbish pay per win games blame Xbox or nintendo or anyone else
No matter what ppl think of cod it makes ps a hell of a lot of money and there is a hell of lot of ppl who will buy the game physical or digital it's simple as and Sony wouldnt like to do without that money

Oh and btw not me I'm not in to cod (especially multiplayer ) but it's about those who buy it and enjoy it and carrying on buying the proceeds are helping both Sony and Microsoft

@Sakai even as a consumer it effects us , the more money Sony make the more they can invest in other games

@Martsmall I meant that I don't care how a company makes their money, as in rental or sales, not that I don't care that the company is sucessful.

Any company whose products I use like Sony, MS and nintendo I hope are somewhat sucessful, for the reason you mentioned

Honestly the fans are part of the problem….they’d buy a bad game and still show support to Activision… thus Activision will continue to make bad games, all they care about is money, they don’t care about their fans.

@Sakai ahh ok sorry , totally agree whether ppl like cod or not it's a massive money maker

@Martsmall 100% mate. But none of it comes from me, the last COD I played was World At War. I just do not have the spare time to commit to them anymore

@Sakai same here and that was just to do coop with a friend. I couldnt say what game is best /worse etc as not played em but honestly they will all make loads anyway without me buying so gd luck to cod

Well, I guess NOT everyone hates MW3, including me.
What's wrong pushsquare? Why are you forcing to make this game look that bad?

@Sakai
I largely agree except we are all stakeholders in this industry and should be mindful of that.

@Martsmall People forget that it was Sony who was arguing heavily about Microsoft owning Call of Duty.

I'd argue that the heavy emphasis on Call of Duty was the reason why the acquisition was accepted.

Why?

It's no secret that Sony made a ton of money off Call of Duty. And by protecting Call of Duty, it looked more like protecting Sony rather than protecting the consumer. The judge during the FTC trial even said it by basically saying, "it's not a great deal for Sony, but a great deal for consumers."

Sony (and others) should have taken the whole picture into account rather than Call of Duty because it simply looked like Sony was protecting its own cash cow - I mean, at the end of the day, it was, but it made the whole argument that consolidation harmed consumers a hollow argument.

At the end of the day, not much has changed:

• Call of Duty is probably still selling highest on PlayStation.
• Sony still gets its 30% cut for Microtransactions.
• The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

The only difference is that Microsoft is getting the other 70% of the money off CoD sales rather than no money at all (which also makes the whole idea of Microsoft making CoD exclusive to Xbox really stupid).

@TheCollector316 Your friend is going to be waiting a long time if he's waiting for MW3 to hit Game Pass. I think Phil Spencer even said that it's going to take until 2024 before anyone sees any ABK games hit Game Pass - let alone MW3.

And if he's one of those people that plays the latest CoD for the year until the next one comes out, it's cheaper to buy the game outright than to pay for a year of Game Pass Ultimate (even if you include 1 year of Game Pass Core on top of the price of the game).

@SkateLine https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/gaming/no-activision-blizzard-games-on-xbox-game-pass-until-2024/ar-AA1irKLU

According to that article, it's any ABK game. And we have no idea when in 2024 and only "potentially". But if it doesn't come until like Summer, it's only a few more months until the next "copy/paste" CoD games out.

@GamingFan4Lyf
My friend is a silly goose and already bought the game for this year. He's looking forward to never have to buy it again. He was already perpetually subscribed to Game Pass and bought Call of Duty on top of that, so now he just gets Call of Duty "free" as far as he's concerned.

@TheCollector316 I'm guessing he didn't do the math beforehand - either that or has a nice deal on Game Pass.

I know I'm good on Game Pass until...hmm...I think 2025 - but I also don't pay for it, so I actually do get games for free.

@GamingFan4Lyf
He doesn't do a lot of math and has no impulse control. We would be in tons of trouble if all consumers mindlessly consumed like that.

@SkateLine It would be a big win to have something for holiday 2023. I won't hold my breath that it will be anything of interest to me - unless it's like Diablo Collection for PC or WoW subscriptions as a Game Pass Perk or something.

I'm not really too fussed with Activision's output as much as I am Blizzard (and some classic Sierra IP that weren't sold off to other publishers).

I have to laugh at all the people that throw hate at COD every year, yet every year they buy it and spend countless hours playing it. You won't find me doing that. I buy it pretty much every year and every year I enjoy it to some degree or another. I enjoy the franchise. Not gonna lie about it and have no shame in admitting it.

@DETfaninATL I don't get people trying to make people feel bad for enjoying a video game. That's the point. It's not popular by accident. The idea that a person feels superiority over someone else because they don't play a certain game is wild.

I'm one of those weird people that played Call of Duty for the campaign. I stopped like 5 entries back but they were bombastic fun in a Michael Bay sort of way. Heard this campaign is pretty dismal.

Activision had a way of running its huge franchises into the ground back in the day by releasing too many games too quickly. Guitar Hero comes to mind. That game was a cultural phenomenon back in the day.

I think CoD has some gas in the tank but I'd guess in the next ten years it will be sitting next to Guitar Hero, unless it can reinvent itself somehow.

This is why publishers don't care about the outrage.

Worst reviewed COD game is likely going to be the best selling game of the year

One big thing people tend to overlook in these comments is that when it comes to sales even when the game isn't good enough, it's much, much quicker for most CoD players to level-up their weapons on MWIII MP than free-to-play Warzone.
That makes a big difference in the minds of the franchise's regular players.