Dead Island Selling Well

Jim Hargreaves 32 Comments

According to video game publisher Deep Silver, Techland’s hybrid survival RPG Dead Island has been a commercial success for the Koch Media division. Today the company announced that Dead Island had shipped one million copies in its debut week, and that’s just in the United States; globally, Deep Silver is expecting that number to crawl past the two million milestone.

Though the figures are impressive, it’s important to remember that these statistics refer to the number of copies shipped to retailers and not necessarily representative of how much people have gone out and purchased the game.

In our review we scored Dead Island a plausible 7 out of 10, praising the game for its addictive mechanics and setting, though acknowledging a number of frequent, and sometimes game-breaking, bugs that have yet to be ironed out almost two weeks after launch.

Source: Press Release

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32 Comments

  1. That’s lovely guys, but how about you patch the thing?

    • +1. Played for about 6 hours, went to play some more and found that my side mission progress had been completely reset and trophy weren’t unlocking. As much as I dig Dead Island, I’m going to wait for a patch before jumping back in and starting again.

      • Agree completely. I can’t help but wonder whether they picked their release date (due to all the great games due in the next couple of months) so people would buy it, the just patch it retrospectively. We are now becoming used to a culture where we accept this – I waited for Fallout New Vegas to be patched before playing, now Dead Island. I like this game but am sticking to Resistance 3 until all the bugs are sorted. More annoying is that I couldn’t even find an official forum with any news on the PS3 patched/updates. Shame.

      • There’s no question in my mind that Deep Silver wanted to preemptively launch Dead Island. Releasing a new IP from a fairly unknown developer and publisher is risky enough, but releasing it during the “Triple A” season with MW3, BF3, Uncharted 3, Batman: AC, AC:R etc. would have been even more so.

      • Same thing. lucky i bought Resistance 3 at the same time as Dead Island otherwise I would be pertty upset having to wait long for the patch. patch 1.01 in the UK didnt fix it, heres hoping soon because I loved playing it

      • Glad it wasn’t just me being cynical then!

      • Patch 1.01 fixed the potential stopping of trophies and game progress for those who started a new game after installing the patch though, right? Because I did this and have not had a problem other than when exiting buildings I’m greeted with very smooth graphics which slowly add detail (i.e. sand which is a blank canvas yellow then slowly turns into what looks like sand).

      • In truth I’m not sure what the patch did. I’ve only played it briefly (post patch I think), and that was mainly 4-player co-op. When I loaded single player my co-op missions were still “DONE”. Then I continued for a bit. I haven’t gone back to it since so not sure whether I’ll be where I was after my co-op mission, or where I last finished single player. My 3 trophies show, however on the playstation.co.uk website, the trophy % for Dead Island shows, but when you go into the trophy breakdown, my 3 trophies aren’t displayed. To summaries, it’s all a big fucking mess, so I’ll wait for the next patch before continuing. At which point I’ll see whether I need to start over again. :(

      • …and yes, textures sometimes took a while to load when exiting a building, which I guess is expected given the large environment, which otherwise seems to load fine when sprinting around. The main issue for me was the constant crashing in co-op, however my progress always seemed to be intact, and I just had to join back in the game.

  2. Been surprised at the sales, it’s been at the top of the Steam charts since release! Given Borderlands also sold extremely well I guess it shows people really like co-op…

    • The coop aspect of the game is probably the only thing that would tempt me to buy this game. Coop all the way!

  3. “…it’s important to remember that these statistics refer to the number of copies shipped to retailers and not necessarily representative of how much people have gone out and purchased the game.”

    Was in town yesterday and was told that all local Game & Gamestation stores had completely sold out, and had people reserving copies for when stock arrives.

    Seems like it’s doing well.
    (Worth noting, I was trading my copy of Dead Island in. Found it to be a rather boring & disengaging experience.)

  4. Good stuff. Looking forward to receiving mine from TSA for winning the competition last week!

  5. So far not loving the game. Not hit too many bugs although its annoying that upon checkpoint saving all the zombies you killed (or NPCs talked to) are in exactly the same place as before. In NPC case even prompts the same quote from your character

  6. This game looks absolutely boring tbh. All the advertisements clearly hyped up this “7/10” game. We all know a game below an “8/10” tends to be lame.

    • Leaving your incorrect generalisations aside, the game is actually tremendous fun.

      • Totally agree nemesis, I’m 23 hours into my first play through (about 60% story completed) and thoroughly enjoying it. Thankfully I’ve not had any save issues either, but then I’ve not even attempted to go online yet and I don’t think I will until the new patch(es) are released just to err on the side of caution.

      • I also Agree Nemesis! Personally I’m getting sick of Call of Duty/Homefront and the likes and think Dead Island is very fresh with a fantastic attention to detail. I feel it is one of the best games I have played in a very long time and for once a game that actually works online and the voice chat is crystal clear. Bad voice chat is one of my biggest gripes these days!.. With a group of friends Dead Island is absolutely fantastic. Yes the game has a few bugs but bugs aside I think this game has had a few unfair reviews and I hope it continues to do well in my opinion they deserve it.

        Looks like it has sold out in my area too.. (Glad I Pre-ordered)

        Being a fan of Zombie games definitely helps but as I said playing this with friends is where this game really shines.

      • most addictive game I have played in ages love it.

      • Yeh it’s really good fun playing with friends.

  7. HMV on Oxford Street has precisely zero copies. Odd.

  8. I have a sealed Special Edition copy waiting to be returned…preordered 2 copies in error! Silly me

  9. I’ve lost some of my progress due to the auto saving bug, but apart from that, the game is brilliant! So much fun playing with mates!

    • Apparently you just need to turn off “online play” or whatever, and sign out of the PlayStation Network. When the game looks for nearby players is what causes the bug, so play it whilst signed out of PSN. Alternatively, after playing, start a new file until you hit a save point, then quit the game. Apparently the glitch deletes your last save file once you quite the game. Cannot verify either of these, but it may help peolpe.

    • also lost an hour or two of my play time thanks to the game failing to save my progress

  10. I’m glad it’s doing well, I’m approaching act III and I’m very impressed by how much I’ve done because I don’t usually like zombie games but I guess it reminds me of fallout more than dead rising so I guess that’s why I like it. Great job!

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