Steam's 2016 overall Top Sellers list released yesterday morning contained all the usual, shrug-of-the-shoulder entries, breaking down the top-selling games (in no particular order) into four tiers. But, to anyone who perceives a hatred of Call of Duty games among PC gamers would be surprised to see Black Ops III in the gold tier.
While that could be a story in and of itself, you'll also notice that Infinite Warfare, Call of Duty's 2016 entry was two tiers below Black Ops III, in the bronze tier. This makes it official that Black Ops III has earned more money on Steam than its newer, shinier follow-up.
Now, I know what you're going to say: "Well that's not an accurate comparison, because Infinite Warfare only came out in November and Black Ops III is usually cheaper." I had the exact same thought, but, while that's true, it's just not replicated in any other franchise.
Civilization VI came out in late October, and it vastly outsold Civilization V. Watch Dogs 2 also came out in November, and it's also beating its predecessor, which is cheaper and had the whole year to sell copies. The list goes on, and in every other case, the sequel is out-selling the predecessor.
Except for Infinite Warfare. This explains Infinite Warfare's dropping player count, and parlays with its disappointing sales overall. We knew that Infinite Warfare was selling at a slower rate than Black Ops III did upon release, but this is a different story entirely, especially since previous numbers only factored in physical copies, and Steam, of course, deals with digital sales.
And, so much for PC gamer's hatred of the Call of Duty series. Black Ops III's position in the second tier of 2016 sales, ahead or on-par with several popular Steam games. So I don't know how much longer the "PC gamers just hate Call of Duty" excuse is going to fly.
