It appears that forgoing the single player campaign hasn’t had a negative effect on Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 sales at all. While in development the decision was made to focus on more multiplayer content in the latest Call of Duty title and it seems to have paid off.
Analyst Mat Piscatella cited the October 2018 data from the NPD group in a tweet, stating that the lack of a single player didn’t hurt Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 sales on launch. He also adds further down the thread that the choice to release Black Ops 4 in October gave the month the best record yet.
So, quick hit takes from the October 2018 U.S. Video Game data from The NPD Group:
– The lack of a SP campaign did not hurt Black Ops IIII launch month sales in the slightest
– On the full game Video Game side, year to date, both Physical and Digital game sales are up YoY (cont.)— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) November 20, 2018
Data used comes from information provided by publishers and while it generally includes both physical and digital sales, not all publishers choose to share digital sales. On this occasion, the numbers do not include information on digital PC sales for Black Ops 4.
Based on the information provided, even without those extra sales Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 sales are still ahead of Red Dead Redemption 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey when it comes to dollar amounts. These numbers also put Black Ops 4 as the current best selling game of 2018.
The conclusion seems to be that for the biggest games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 sales will be successful regardless of release.
These results aren’t too surprising as Call of Duty games have always brought in massive numbers and it was always expected that Black Ops 4, which we thought was a top-class Call of Duty experience, would be no different.
