3. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest :O

Goddamn I hate world of warcraft.

Much less I'm just sick of human vs. monster mmorpg's... (which pretty much rules out all of them?)

Wow. UT3 is nowhere. What happened? Was it marketed that badly, or do people really not want it? Even Crysis is up there.

Wow, to think UT3 is getting such a cold reception still.

Not saying that Crysis is bad, just you know...the requirements.

What's 15000 games? Off to Google....

Oh, I sure hope 15000 Games has AT LEAST 200 versions of Mah Jong or no deal.

Disappointed to see Simcity Societies on there... and really surprised to see that battlechest so high - proof that good games beat good looking games.

Pirates of the Burning Sea? Nice. I bought that at launch, still find it pretty amusing. I'm glad it's at least selling.

Sim City 4 still holding on! Wooo!

6 sim's games wow that was surprising.

BWAHAHA Simcity 4 is selling better than Simcity 5 even though its so much older. Lets hope EA gets the hint and returns Simcity to the way it was (and make Simcity's new direction a spinoff to keep casual players happy).

@_Ted_: Explains why they are an entire division of EA.

Why don't they just call it the Warcraft and The Sims sales charts?

I mean, they make up half of the top 20 anyways.

I wish I could still PC game, but at least the only games on this list that I would play are also on the 360 (i.e. CoD4 and the Orange Box).

@amost: I guess people are still jumping on the bandwagon.

@xMaverick: I know what you mean, I went through a stretch where I was really tired of anything fantasy or sci-fi. I just wanted to be a regular human killing other regular humans. So I played Counter-Strike. For years.

Surprised to see pirates of the burning sea up there. However, I feel steam is the future of PC gaming, and i am more interested in it's sales... I mean, 15k games is #7, what does that tell you about the normal PC retail market.

@Lixie: a bunch of games on one cd(basically quantity over quality).

and ut3 really needs a demo or something(idk if PC has a demo or not)

very interesting to see sim city 4 up on that list. its nice seeing older games are still selling strong.

Lots of WoW and Sim games up there, but I am surprised that Crysis beat out Orange Box. Also I thought Orange Box had a good amount of games in them, but you can't beat 15000 O_O - unless of course that's not what it is. Feel free to correct me.

Wait, Age of Empires III is on this list? Is it really that dire for PC gaming that it's WoW, the Sims, a couple of sorta-new releases, and a bunch of budget titles? Yikes.

@NitrousO: there is no sim city 5. Sim city societies really is a spin off from the sim city (insert # here) line. Im sure they'll come up with the fifth one soon enough.

Orange Box SHOULD HAVE BEEN NUMBER 2 AT LEAST.. GAH, either they didn't include the digital downloads, or everyone bought the game up back when it came out..

Where's The Experiment (aka Experience 112) in all of this? Best VOYEURAN game ever, IMO

Where's Guardian Heroes, Typing of the Dead, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Samba De Amigo, or Shenmue... oh that's right... everyone hated SEGA so they failed... :(

@Katorok: Dude, he said it right up there in the article description. "Of course, this doesn't count things like digital delivery, but a compromised chart's better than no chart at all, amiright?"

@mikevanpwn: The mod scene for SimCity 4 is waaay cooler, and all the stuff from 4 years ago still looks awesome today.

The only standout here is Crysis, otherwise everything else you can run on a relatively dated PC no problemo, not that I don't mind upgrading for a game, but that hasn't come along yet to warrant it for me.

But the weird thing is where is Sins? Did it just sell well for the first couple weeks (an I go to EB sold out) and then just nothing? Personally I'm still waiting on the demo

@Bluecell: gosh! how many people still DON'T have this game?

The elderly LOVE WoW, more then the Wii.

I bet with all my heart my 95 year old Grandma would like WoW more then Wii Sports.

@Sober:

Might be the lack of a demo, sales on Stardocks digital distrib system, or lack of supply.

@Katorok: Both of the above

@Morberis: Luckily the demo is out in a bit, if what they say is true that the demo is one month after release, then I can see if I like it.

BF2 must have had some big sales or something.

Looks like the Target/Walmart software lineup. Aw man, that sucks. First the toy industry, and now the software industry is going to get fewer venues of distribution. I'm going to predict Gamestop is going to branch out to an E-rated store, like a BabiesRUs for games. Get ready.

Diner Dash is #6...good God what has PC gaming come to..

I would wager that the Orange Box would be in the top 5 if digital sales were included.

@Bluecell: Hahaha, yeah man, can't deal with crap like World of Warcraft. I'm just sticking to COD4 (PC) and my other Steam-based games, TF2, Audiosurf, CS:S, HL:2 1 and 2, Stalker, UT3, Bioshock, and then there's my PS3 + hAcked PSP Combo :)

To be honest, and anyone can bash me on this one, I played Ragnarok Online since Alpha and played for a good 5 more years. Made 2 champions and a really kick ass Gunslinger...

But now I couldn't care less.

@Sober:
Didn't Sins come out in February? Or maybe I just didn't find it until February. Regardless, it's a great game.

Whoa! And they say PC gaming is dead! What a load of BS!

Sarcasm aside, maybe there IS no reason to unwrap that new G15 keyboard....back to the store for you!

@Sober:

Sins was released in February. This is for January. It should be at or near the top for this month.

So wait according to this, Sins of a Solar Empire was #1 (atleast for gamasutra) last week, and now a week later they are not even in the top 20?

[forums.sinsofasolarempire.com]

I find something screwy with this list for reasons other than this too...

I fail to see how any inferences on the relative health of PC gaming could be made from this. All it indicates is that the usual nonsense is being purchased en masse by the vulgar masses. What's more, games like Diner Dash and The Sims aren't as likely to figure prominently into digital download statistics as, say, The Orange Box.

"Wow. UT3 is nowhere. What happened? Was it marketed that badly, or do people really not want it?"

Well, I'm not losing much sleep over its failure. I think this is one of those cases where a mediocre game reaps only as much as it deserves.

This makes me afraid for PC gaming. Too much WoW, not enough Orange Box. I hope Age of Conan can release Blizzard's stranglehold on MMORPGs. I guess a lot of people just like to play mah jong and 20 different kinds of Solitare on their computers.

Surprised The Witcher is not up there.

@Adamk24: These are January NPD numbers (it's even clearly stated in the title). The article you referenced is for one week out of February.

@xMaverick: I Heartily Agree.

These PC NPD statistics dont mean shit anymore.

I'm a pretty hardcore pc gamer (i.e. fairly regularly upgrade components myself to play the latest games) and I have bought a PC game from a store in longer than i can remember. BF2 was probably the last one I got and that was when it came out.

But I've purchased heaps of stuff on steam since then... and probably would've bought more if the other companies got their games on it... Crysis I'm looking at you!!

Its stupid to think that the future of PC gaming will be anything but online with digital distribution.

@mx5geek:

Its stupid to think that the future of PC gaming will be anything but online with digital distribution.

SSSSHHHHHHHH! We don't want to rile the pirates!

UT3 not even in the top 20? Ouch.

@boopadoo:

I'd wager Gamestop will continue to be the place where gamers swap used games with each other, while making GS rich.

Buy game for $60, sell it back for $30
Next gamer buys it for $55

GS makes more money off of one used game sale than they do from 5 new game sales. No wonder their stores look like a garage sale.

I wish gamers would learn how to use ebay, and we'd all be better off.

This list is fairly broken if you dont count digital distro. Sure, i bought Half-life 2 and episode 1 in the store, but i decided to go the digital way for orange box since it got me TF2 beta and playing the game right at midnight east coast time while i was on the west coast.

@SeeOne:
Yeah I know, they're making tons of money ripping kids off.