After months of beta testing, the UKIE has finally released the first UK digital charts and a combined digital and retail chart for PC games.
Every Monday the UK retail charts would be released but it was not a fair reflection of PC gamers’ purchasing trends. Any UK gamer who drops into a retail outlet is more than likely quite disappointed with what’s on offer. The supermarkets do a roaring trade in videogame sales also don’t stock PC games, apart from budget titles. All these factors skewed the weekly charts as more and more PC gamers rely on digital versions of their favourite games.
Now we have some real charts to play with we’ll be bringing you these new charts each week along with the Steam top sellers on Sunday to get a good idea of what’s hot and what’s not for the previous week. These new charts will initially be released monthly but will change to weekly eventually.
While the charts are not perfect as all publishers need to support them and submit their data, it’s at least slightly more accurate than going on the previous retail boxed copy charts.
Jo Twist, CEO of UKIE had this to say about today’s chart launch: “As an industry, we need to measure the true size of the digital games market and that’s why we have invested in this system for the industry to own. Companies that are involved are already getting a competitive advantage, using the data to make informed and fact based commercial decisions.”
To get things started, the first ever PC digital sales and retail/digital sales figures for March 2013 are as follows, these include downloads and expansions/DLC :
Retail & Digital Sales Combined (Units)
- SimCity
- Bioshock Infinite
- The Sims 3: University Life
- Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm
- Tomb Raider
- Football Manager 2013
- Battlefield 3
- The Sims 3
- Just Cause 2
- Far Cry 3
Digital Sales (Units)
- Bioshock Infinite
- SimCity
- Tomb Raider
- Battlefield 3
- The Sims 3: University Life
- Just Cause 2
- Hitman Absolution
- Far Cry 3
- Football Manager 2013
- Trials Evolution Gold
