Comments on: The Sims Top Ten, September 6th

By: Ginger Yellow

Ginger Yellow — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:15:02 +0000

Jesus. All but one are Maxis or Blizzard products, and only one’s a new game. I realise it’s still the end of the summer, as far as the game publishing season goes, but still. The digital download revolution can’t come soon enough.

By: piphil

piphil — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:31:56 +0000

Wouldn’t Spore be in the charts on pre-orders? Or does it not work like that…?

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:10:12 +0000

@Noc: I thought the same. :(

By: mister slim

mister slim — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:17:22 +0000

Imagine what the chart would look like if Maxis hadn’t screwed up The Sims Online so badly.

By: Cheeetar

Cheeetar — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 06:10:34 +0000

The reason Spore hit 2 is because it was out in Europe and Australia and a few other places before America.

By: Bare Echo

Bare Echo — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:41:44 +0000

WC3 is probably an availability spike. Same thing happened with Starcraft a little while ago, I was trying to buy it, couldn’t find it in any shops or online stores (that I trust at least), then when play.com and amazon finally got a shipment it got into the charts. It’s now out of stock again. And I want to buy 2 more copies for my friends – irritating.

(And as for “why Starcraft” it’s because it’s the best game everyone in my house can run and can play without getting motion sickness.)

By: Jeeva

Jeeva — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:19:02 +0000

Ha. Kismet, …

Just… just nice. =D

By: mandrill

mandrill — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:27:52 +0000

Yes, Kismet has it I think.
EA buys their place in the chart, either directly through the use of brown envelopes, or indirectly by pumping money into marketing. Warcraft is thrown in to make it look kosher, and Steam is ignored as it doesn’t feed the high street retail monster.

It literally does look like someone has picked on the games that they’ve heard of and just shoved them in a list.

By: ack

ack — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:07:55 +0000

Kismet -> Win.

This list really tells the tale of branding.

By: RLacey

RLacey — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:49:51 +0000

It never ceases to irritate me that the Warcraft III Battle Chest seems to be incredibly easy to get hold of in the US, and yet is nigh on impossible to get for a sensible price here in the UK. Me is bitter.

By: edosan

edosan — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:39:30 +0000

Well, you have to admit that list reflects the stock of a typical Best Buy pretty well.

By: Kismet

Kismet — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:34:08 +0000

NPD Charts Creative Director (NPDCCD): “So, we need to decide the ten best selling PC games for this week. Let’s make it fast, I’m hungry.”
NPD Charts Creative Director Whipping Boy (Whipping Boy): “We can just throw in the usual ones, a bit of The Sims, some World of Warcraft…”
NPDCCD: “…some Madden.”
Whipping Boy: “No Madden on PC this year sir.”
NPDCCD: “Sure?”
Whipping Boy: “Yes sir.”
NPDCCD: “Damn! They’re making it hard on us. We need more EA titles to fill the top 10. Ideas?”
Whipping Boy: “Well, there’s Crysis, not really recent, but definitely adds a solid PC flavour to the chart.”
NPDCCD: “Fine. Mmmh 1-2-3…8-9. Another one and we’re done.”
Whipping Boy: “Spore!”
NPDCCD: “Already out?”
Whipping Boy: “Yes sir.”
NPDCCD: “Sure?”
Whipping Boy: “Yes sir, torrent was already around yesterday and I can testify the crack works like a charme.”
NPDCCD: “And it takes weeks to beat DRM systems nowadays.”
Whipping Boy: “Indeed sir.”
NPDCCD: “Spore second best selling PC title of the week then and I’m out for lunch now. Good work!”
Whipping Boy: “Thanks sir.”

*hides*