NPD has released sales info on the top ten titles for last year. They are:
1. World of Warcraft
2. The Sims 2
3. The Sims 2 Open for Business Expansion
4. Star Wars: Empire at War
5. The Sims 2 Pets Expansion
6. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
7. Age of Empires III
8. The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff Expansion
9. Civilization IV
10. The Sims 2 Nightlife Expansion
All data included Collector’s Editions as part of the total for a single title.
The list has the usual suspects, with the exception of Empire at War. Sure, it’s Star Wars, but did anyone expect it to beat out Oblivion and three Sims expansions? It’s also interesting that two of the titles (Age of Empires 3 and Civ 4) were released in late 2005, and so any holiday boost from their initial release would have been counted in that year. World of Warcraft defies any attempt at rational analysis and taunts me in my sleep.
The Sims should have its own list somewhere else, because I’d love to know what the next ten games were. Once you get past the legions of fans who want every Sims expansion, a wider view of the industry’s top sellers would be nice. For example, were any “new” games in the top 20? All the top ten are franchise or license games – original in their own way, but not flashes of originality.
Oh man, Will Wright must sleep “On a big pile of money, surrounded by many beautiful ladies”…
With regards to Krupo’s comment, I seem to recall a recent New Yorker article on Will Wright that described his lifestyle in Berkeley (or thereabouts) as more of an eccentric, somewhat unhappily married man (he divorced soon after the article) living a relatively ordinary life. Of course, who knows what goes on in SimsAfterDark?
Divorce? I hadn’t heard that. :( As for the sequelitis nature of new games, some amount is inescapable–publishers will slap an existing brand onto whatever they can in order to boost consumer recognition. Even SupCom is milking the Chris Taylor “brand name.”
That’s a shame to hear about Wright. :( I recall seeing SC4 having some buildings that appeared to reference his daughter or whatever – you would thing everything might be happy and breezy, but aren’t.