Sales of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 don't appear to have been damaged in the slightest by its lack of a single-player campaign.
Developer Treyarch and publisher Activision opted not to include a single-player story mode in the game this time around, despite the fact that every Call of Duty installment up to Black Ops 4 has featured one. Pre-release worries around this omission led many to believe that the game would suffer financially, but this doesn't seem to be the case.
According to the latest figures from the NPD Group, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 did better in terms of dollar amount sales in October than the month's other big releases, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Assassin's Creed Odyssey. NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella tweeted that the game also managed to set new October sales records for the industry, which is likely due to Activision's decision to release Black Ops 4 in October instead of its usual November slot. It's also worth remembering that the NPD figures don't include digital PC sales for Activision Blizzard, so it's likely that the game's numbers are even more significant than the ones we're seeing.
https://twitter.com/MatPiscatella/status/1065028532361809920
According to VentureBeat, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's launch month dollar sales are the eighth highest since the group began tracking figures in 1995. The game is now the best-selling game of 2018 (yes, already), and the second best-selling game across the last 12 months, second only to the previous game in the series, Call of Duty: WWII. Seems like the naysayers' fears of underperformance due to a lack of single-player campaign were unfounded.
This news comes despite the fact that Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 suffered the lowest physical launch sales of any Call of Duty game within the last decade; shares in Activision Blizzard tumbled in October after investors were disappointed with the game's launch performance. The game performed at around the same level as 2015's Black Ops 3, but investors were hoping for an increase in large part due to the success of battle royale titles like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite. It is worth noting that physical sales for Call of Duty, along with many other games, have been on a downward trajectory for many years, so it's not a surprise to see Black Ops 4 continuing this trend. Also worth bearing in mind that Black Ops 4 should have slightly higher numbers for 2018 than Call of Duty: WWII did for 2017; Black Ops 4 came out in October, whereas WWII was released in November, so those extra weeks will make a difference when comparing year-by-year performance.
For TechRaptor, it's no surprise that Black Ops 4 has performed so well; we thought it was the best game in the series for many years. Hopefully, these numbers will encourage Activision to stay on this upward quality tick for the franchise.
How do you feel about Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's numbers? Let us know in the comments below!
