UK Charts: Black Ops 2 Still Tops, All-Stars Barely Makes It

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2 is the predictable chart topper this week but Ubisoft’s Hitman: Absolution makes second place with sales that are more than treble that of the last Hitman game.

The next highest new entry belongs to the ever popular Lego series with the brick-based version of Lord of the Rings landing in sixth position. Apart from that the week’s new releases have all floundered badly, Epic Mickey 2 at 34 with Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse close behind at 35.

Shock of the week: Despite endless promotions, trailers and weeks upon weeks of character reveals Sony’s PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale just scrapes in to the charts at number 38. Perhaps everyone bought a digital copy?

Here is the UK Top 20 in full for the week ending November 24th:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Activision)
2. Hitman Absolution (Square Enix)
3. FIFA 13 (EA)
4. Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft)
5. Halo 4 (Microsoft)
6. LEGO Lord of the Rings (Warner Bros)
7. Just Dance 4 (Ubisoft)
8. Skylanders Giants (Activision)
9. Need for Speed: Most Wanted (EA)
10. Dishonored (Bethesda)
11. WWE ’13 (THQ)
12. Moshi Monsters: Moshlings Theme Park (Mind Candy)
13. uDraw Studio: Instant Artist (THQ)
14. Resident Evil 6 (Capcom)
15. Football Manager 2013 (Sega)
16. New Super Mario Bros 2 (Nintendo)
17. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda)
18. Medal of Honor: Warfighter (EA)
19. F1 2012 (Codemasters)
20. Book of Spells (Sony)

32 Comments

  1. “Perhaps everyone bought a digital copy?”

    clutching at straws perhaps?

    • A large percentage of the sales could very well be digital because Sony’s first party games are not hilariously overpriced on PSN unlike games from certain third party pubs.

      And didn’t the game just come out on Friday in UK?

      • Yeah, it did just come out on Friday, but first week sales tend to be the strongest.

        Not strong enough it would seem!

        It would surprise me if digital sales surpassed retail sales, but stranger things have been known to happen.

  2. I was really surprised to find out that Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse was already out. I haven’t seen a single ad for that. I’ll definitely get it at some point but I’ll probably await a price drop.

    • Me too, I didn’t realise either! Poor advertising

      • That’s Activision for you. They create loads of games but don’t advertise half of them – Blood Drive, Wolfenstein etc.

      • Singularity is one of the main ones.

        In a conversation I had with their community manager about apparent lack of Singularity marketing he showed me where it had been marketed and pointed out that any good business knows even marketing has to provide a return on investment.

        Some titles, their name alone sells copies for an initial launch period, & some advertising happens when that flags (perhaps Family Guy will fit into that), some titles get extensive developer diaries which generate a lot of online column inches & those titles receive targeted online advertising (Singularity etc) and some titles receive targeted TV campaigns (Blur, 007 Legends etc) and yet more receive extensive TV campaigns (CoD etc)

        In all cases they do seem to take care of things & they do make money unlike other publishing houses, so perhaps they do handle things right.

      • “Singularity marketing he showed me where it had been marketed ” – erm, where was that then cos I never saw a single advert. Shame it was a good game.

      • Yeah, i have to jump on that bandwagon & say i never saw a single piece of marketing for Singularity either.

        If i didn’t come here most days, i wouldn’t have known a damn thing about it & that’s a shame as it was a really good game.

        In the end it ended up selling a little via word of mouth, but the multiplayer was consistently underplayed as a result.

      • Promotion, banners & site takeovers etc on various high traffic sites like IGN, 1-up and others, can’t remember exactly.

        The developer diary approach which many sites got on board with, followed by online trailers which we covered on TSA at the time, generates column inches too, multiply that by other sites like EG, VG247 etc and there’s quite a bit of exposure out there without spunking loads of money on TV campaigns for which you’ll probably get no return… as highlighted by Blur.

      • Ah i see – Advertisement on sites that most sensible people don’t bother with then! ;)

      • But All Stars is not aimed at mainstream gamers but at causal gamers due to it being a brawl clone and is an attempt at having a bite of the causal pie. Thus the people it is targeted at won’t know about it. Plus, IGN’s site seems to cause FF14.something to freeze up. :O

      • It would make sense to advertise the game during Family Guy commercial breaks. Maybe they did that but I don’t live in the States so I can’t verify that. If they didn’t do that it’s a missed opportunity since they’d be targeting their core audience.

    • Some sites should have reviews up, I don’t think its all that positive though.

  3. I have a rental copy of All-Stars Battle Royale but I was too hungover to play it yesterday. Might give it a go tonight though. I certainly like the idea of it.

  4. I think like many people All Stars just doesn’t appeal to me….

  5. Perhaps if Sony ADVERTISED IT!

    • +1

    • Are you joking? They spent how much on the live action trailers? Online ads have been plastered everywhere too.

      • the only advert I have seen for it was on TSA in an article, other than that, I haven’t seen anything either.

      • I got emails about it mazing…!

    • I’ve not seen any either but Wonderbook seems to be on permanently. Have seen some LBP Karting now too.

    • This time around this has been advertised to feck, Sony may have sent many of their previous titles out to die but LBP:K, PSASBR & Vita itself have been advertised to death during key programmes with their sole focus of ‘male 18-35 demographic’.

    • I don’t watch much TV, but I’ve seen All-Stars advertised a few times recently.

  6. Not surprised that FG did badly due to it being out in the same week as BLOPS and that Acti once again didn’t bother to market it. What is it with them and not marketing games that are not COD? :S

    Am a bit surprised that All Stars has done badly but seeing as there has been no adverts for it on the internet or on the tv, it’s no wonder it is not up in the top 20. Prehaps they should have delayed it untill December in order to cash in on the christmas rush.

    • Loads of adverts for it.

      Sony may have helped many of their titles wither & die this year through zero promotion & even ballsing up their availability on their own store for weeks on end, but PSASBR, LBP:K & the Vita itself with CoD:D being used to sell key benefits of Vita (dual sticks & touchscreen) have been on TV no end – I’ve seen more ads for them than Halo4 & BlOps2 combined.

  7. To be fair, this isn’t a mainstream game if you ask me. Add to this that it’s a Playstation exclusive and there’s very little chance of it making a serious impact on a multiplatform chart.

    However, great news to see Wonderbook on there! :-)

  8. From what TV i have watched there hasn;t been any mention of All stars, instead i;ve seen a lot of Call Of Duty Blops and Declassified trailers, which is good for the Vita. After the pretty cool ads of it on youtube for all stars its a shame they didnt publicize them more.

  9. That’d be Peter’s carefully orchestrated campaign of hate against All-Stars Battle Royale taking effect, then. He’s trouble, that one.

  10. I have seen one advert for all stars on TV & its awful imo – I wouldn’t buy it after seeing all those fools wearing floppy costumes & faffing about as its ‘advertisement’.

    I made the joke about sackboy looking a little like ‘zippy on crack’ before when i saw the picture, but i didn’t realise just how much more it looks like it in the advert itself!

    At least they have an advert out there though… Somewhere.

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