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With 12m sales, If Elden Ring is ‘niche’ then so is CoD
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OPINION: It’s no secret, I’m a big fan of Elden Ring and Souls-like games in general. I mean, what’s not to love?
Impossibly high difficulty levels that makes it feel like an accurate simulation of what would happen if you put a normal person in a suit of armour and asked them to slay a dragon? More stats and build options than any normal person could ever sensibly get a full grasp of without giving up their regular 9-5 job? Permanent risk you’ll rage throw your controller after yet another monster one-shots you? It’s all there.
Which is why I gaveElden Ringa 4.5/5 when I reviewed it. It’s also why,like many fans of From Software games, I took exception to the description of the game as being part of a niche genre.
For me, being difficult and debatably a bit geeky given its fantasy setting, does not make a game niche. Would you callSkyrima niche title, orCyberpunk 2077? So why apply it to pretty much every From Software game?
Thankfully my argument just got somehard evidenceto support it, as From Software President and CEO, Hidetaka Miyazaki confirmed the game has just surpassed the 12-million sales milestone in a press release sent to Trusted Reviews and other media outlets.
Does that make it the best selling game ever? No, but it puts it right up there in terms of popularity with some of gaming’s biggest franchises.
Mat Piscatella, Executive Director & Video Game Industry Advisor,claimsthat Elden Ring saw the second highest number of launch month sales for any tracked game release in the past 12 months. The only game to best it wasCall of Duty: Vanguard, which launched back in November 2021.
US NPD PREMIUM GAMES – Elden Ring debuted as both the best-selling game of February 2022 as well as 2022 YTD. Launch month sales of Elden Ring were the 2nd highest for any tracked title released in the past 12 months, trailing only Call of Duty: Vanguard, released in Nov 2021.
We don’t have firm numbers for Call of Duty Vanguard so it’s difficult to know how close Elden Ring came to topping the juggernaut. The fact that Activision reported Vanguard was40% down in salescompared to the olderCall of Duty Black Ops Cold Warshows just how popular the third-party shooter series is, too.
But it’s still mighty impressive that Elden Ring managed to leapfrog other popular games such asFIFA 22, Pokémon Legends: Arceus andBattlefield 2042. To be honest, it’s quite remarkable that Elden Ring has even been included in the same conversation as these franchises when it comes to sales.
Still not convinced? Let’s look at live player numbers. At the time of writing, there were 421,079concurrent Elden Ring players active on Steam.
Though it’s not a direct comparison as it uses a different tracking tool,CoD trackerwas reporting 490,493 “tracked” Vanguard players. Yes, that’s a bigger number, despite the game launching a few months ago, but it still shows Elden Ring is a big game in the same league as Vanguard.
It’s also why I’d really like us as an industry and gamers in general to stop describing anything that’s not about pretending to be a soldier or sports as a niche title. The numbers show the industry is bigger and more diverse than that. If Elden Ring’s still a “niche” title, then so is Call of Duty.
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Alastair is in charge of Trusted Reviews Limited’s editorial strategy and output across all its sites. He has over a decade’s experience as a journalist working in both B2C and B2B press. During this …
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Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
