About one and a half month ago, gaming websites worldwide were shook with news of supposed poor early sales for both Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3. As you may recall, I had my doubts about the accuracy of the many exaggerated reports on this information. Later sales figures for the month of December already indicated a significant boost in sales figures for both games, but now it seems my suspicions have been officially and undeniably confirmed. Indeed it looks like the December hype of PC gaming death and poor sales figures was more than just a bit premature.

Perhaps the most interesting part is that the majority of major gaming sites have actually not picked up on this news, which refutes the stories they released in December. Are they ashamed, or are they actually out there playing their freshly bought copies of Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3? It looks like it might just be a bit of both, as Electronic Arts‘ recently announced that Crysis, a PC exclusive title, hit over one million sales worldwide. A very impressive feat in the most shooter-packed Christmas season ever, particularly for a highly demanding and PC-exclusive title like Crysis.

What’s also interesting is the implications of these statistics for the global picture of PC gaming and the validity of NPD Group statistics. If Crysis sold less than 80000 copies in it’s first three weeks according to the NPD Group, then this total sales number leaves us with a couple of interesting possibilities:

1. The NPD Group is an organization that no longer has the capability to properly indicate PC game sales in any way, shape or form. This is actually very likely to be accurate, as the NPD Group itself indicates they do not track online sales, digital download or specialist shop sales into their statistics. Let’s face it: how many PC gamers do you know who still buy their games offline? I can’t even think of one!
2. The United States is no longer the primary source of income - and sales - for PC game developers, even in mainstream genres like shooters. In light of the November statistics this also seems likely, as several European countries featured Crysis firmly in their top 10 game sales listings. And as Americans themselves should know quite well: PC games aren’t exactly easy to come by in the great US of A. Often being relegated to an obscure little corner in some megastore.
3. Digital downloads may well be underestimated as a medium for game sales. Crysis was offered by means of Electronic Arts‘ own digital download mechanics, and while we may not have actual statistics on how many games were sold by this method, one thing is certain: the NPD Group certainly didn’t track these copies!

Of course the most noticeable effect this announcement might have is that gaming sites might be a bit more conservative in their news reports next time. Ok, so that seems unlikely, but at least now everyone knows that NPD Group statistics are far from everything and certainly no indication of how well a PC game sells. Now if only there were some way to find out how many copies other great PC games like The Witcher or World in Conflict have sold…

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