{"id":3650,"date":"2009-03-13T13:08:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-13T11:08:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T22:00:00","slug":"top-20-selling-pc-games-for-feb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/3650-top-20-selling-pc-games-for-feb","title":{"rendered":"Top 20 selling PC games for Feb"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Market research firm NPD has published a list of the USA&rsquo;s top 20 selling PC games in February.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The List<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Blizzard) &ndash; An active subscriber base of over 10million people definitely helps.<\/p>\n<p>2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Sims 2 Double Deluxe(EA\/Maxis):&nbsp; No comment.<\/p>\n<p>3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II (Relic): An impressive achievement considering that the game was launched towards the end of the month.<\/p>\n<p>4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; World of Warcraft: Battle Chest (Blizzard): Proof that this pony still has legs.<\/p>\n<p>5.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (Monolith): Received mixed reviews, check out ours <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mygaming.co.za\/news\/Reviews\/3587-FEAR-Project-Origin.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>6.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Spore (EA Maxis): Still selling strong despite receiving a rather disappointed reception and being the most downloaded (illegally) PC game of 2008.<\/p>\n<p>7.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; World of Warcraft (Blizzard)<\/p>\n<p>8.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Sims Apartment Life (EA\/Maxis)<\/p>\n<p>9.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Fallout 3 (Bethesda): Good to see this stand out 2008 release still selling well. Review <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mygaming.co.za\/news\/Reviews\/3454-Fallout.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>10.&nbsp;&nbsp; WoW: The Burning Crusade (Blizzard): At this stage, we are pretty sure that Blizzard has more money than most countries.<\/p>\n<p>11.&nbsp;&nbsp; Call of Duty: World at War (Treyarch): Received mixed reviews, but once again proving the power of a branded franchise. Review <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mygaming.co.za\/news\/Reviews\/3285-Call-Duty-World-War.html\" target=\"_blank\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>12.&nbsp;&nbsp; Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (EA LA): See above comment<\/p>\n<p>13.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Left 4 Dead (Valve): Because who doesn&rsquo;t like killing zombies with their friends, right?<\/p>\n<p>14.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Sims 2 Deluxe (EA\/Maxis): When will it end?<\/p>\n<p>15.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Civilization IV (Fireaxis)<\/p>\n<p>16.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Sims 2 Mansion &amp; Garden Stuff (EA Maxis): Who says girls don&rsquo;t play games?<\/p>\n<p>17.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; StarCraft Battle Chest (Blizzard): See comment 10.<\/p>\n<p>18.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Spore Creepy &amp; Cute Parts pack (EA Maxis)<\/p>\n<p>19.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Diablo Battle Chest (Blizzard)<\/p>\n<p>20.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Sims 2 Pets (EA Maxis)<\/p>\n<p>There are a few definite trends to be noticed in this sales chart.<\/p>\n<p>Firstly, 14 out of the 20 titles are sequels or add-ons. This cements the notion that if you are a games developer and you want to make money, you really need to stick to a franchise that is already established. The only original intellectual property released in the past year to make this list is Left 4 Dead and Spore. But then Valve could sell stale crayons and people would queue up, and Spore manages to appeal to a similar demographic as the Sims franchise.<\/p>\n<p>We are a little bit surprised at a few exclusions, such as Dead Space, Far Cry 2 and Mirror&#8217;s Edge.<\/p>\n<p>Secondly, it is clear that there are a select few games developers that are making a lot of money; Namely Blizzard and EAMaxis. These two developers combined account for 13 out of the US&rsquo;s 20 top selling PC games in February. Despite the Sims Franchise being the cash cow that it is, EA still managed to lose $641million is its last financial quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We take a look at NPD\u2019s list of Feb\u2019s top sellers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}