back to article Best-selling games of 2011 revealed

CES 2012 Week With World+Dog's attention focused on the new gadgets on show at CES this week, games trade organisation UKIE decided the time was right to reveal which were the UK's top selling games of 2011. It should come as no surprise who shot to first place. For the third year running, Activision's Call of Duty series …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    heh modern borefare 3 and c--tfield 3 there's a suprise.

    I think zero punctuation had last year pretty well summed up for mainstream top and bottom 5 games.

    1. Steve Ives

      At what age do you grow out of expressing your dislike for things by changing their names to rude ones that rhyme? 11, 12?

    2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Alien

      c--tfield 3?

      I can't fit anything in there. "cattlefield 3" does not match.

      "I think zero punctuation had last year pretty well summed up for mainstream top and bottom 5 games"

      This doesn't even reach RACTER level. What is being said here?

      1. Greg J Preece

        Zero Punctuation? This guy:

        http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation

        He's actually pretty damned funny.

  2. Alex Walsh

    Zumba

    Only appears in the Wii chart, is the installed user base really high enough that it got to number 4 overall on the basis of that?!

  3. Cosmo
    Flame

    Zumba and Just Dance

    That's very interesting results for Zumba and Just Dance 3.

    A lot of geeks seem to take delight in ripping the inferior Wii to shreds, but yet two of it's titles can get into the top 10. Maybe this should be a little kick in the arse for game developers to try and branch out from the FPS and MMO borefest.

  4. Greg J Preece

    F**kin' football

    That is all.

  5. Piro Silver badge
    FAIL

    Wow, such innovation

    Really, a couple of games where you shoot men in the face, and a football game, at the top.

    Not surprising, but really, every previous FIFA game is probably the same as the next one (hint: you just kick a ball around), and most new shooters bring nothing to the table (hint: you just shoot men in the face).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What people want

      " every previous FIFA game is probably the same as the next one"

      Just like every football match in every league is identical to the one that proceeded it and the one that follows it (in our eyes at least). I think it's fairly self evident that football fans want to see the same thing over and over and over again and FIFA games give them exactly that. In the word of football, new rarely means better to the fans and the same goes for football games.

      1. Eddy Ito

        So true

        I think the allure of sports games is that it allows fans to feel they have a greater sense of participation. Of course it means buying the next version next year because of the updated player list, imagine the humiliation when your mates come over to play only to point out that the roster for the sports team from their area is wrong! The horror.

        It's hard to believe this is over a decade old but it seems apt.

        http://www.theonion.com/articles/you-will-suffer-humiliation-when-the-sports-team-f,10804/

    2. Andrew Smith

      It's what the public want, there are plenty of other games available but this is what the public buy.

  6. Anthony Hulse

    Forgot a category

    Mac Best Sellers

    1. Half-Life

    2. Civilization 2

    3. Lemmings

    4. Pac Man (recently reduced to only £104!!)

    5. ........er that's it.

    1. Kyoraki

      Not sure what rock you're living under lad, but Macs have seen a huge rise in games thanks to Steam and Onlive entering the market. Who knows, one day they might break into triple digits.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Surely there was science to be done?!

    Didn't Portal 2 come out in 2011?

    If so it just shows what the best game of the decade does to sales when actual 'thinking' is involved.

  8. Torben Mogensen

    iPhone and Android?

    Surely these platforms should be considered as well? And what about browser games? Some of them actually cost money to play (in the full version), so you could calculate the sales of these too.

    Or is it unfair to compare a game that you can buy on Android Market or App Store for $1 to a console or PC game that costs $20 or more?

  9. David W4

    More formats??

    Out of interest, what about iOS games, surely the sales of those are reasonably high given the userbase... any stats?

    1. semprance
      Meh

      Pointless

      1. Angry Birds

      2. Angry Birds Rio

      3. Angry Birds Seasons

      4. Capcom vs Angry Birds

      5. Angry Birds 2012 Olympics Edition

      6 . etc... (fruit ninja?)

      The mobile gaming market mostly consists of casual players so the charts really aren't up to much usually ...

  10. Truffle

    The results are heavily skewed surely. Just looking at the Top PC games shows Football Manager 2012 & 2011 as 1 and 2 respectively. Now lets be fair here, Football Manager 2011 would have gained sales from Jan-Dec. Whilst 2012 only Oct-Dec or Skyrim would be Nov-Dec!

    Surely these results should be divided by the number of days in the year that the titles were actually on sale for?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Award is for "Best selling games" not "best games"

    See title.

    (My best games would be Portal 2, Skyrim, Limbo...)

  12. MJI Silver badge

    I have only played one of them

    And got one other to play.

    Yes all those top games and only Uncharted 3 has been played by me.

    A son has AC2R so that will be played another time.

    2011 games I have played

    Killzone 3

    Portal 2

    Rage

    Resistance 3

    Uncharted 3

    Mass Effect 2

    What do we have

    Possibly the best FPS multiplayer - COD players would be wiped out.

    A VERY clever game

    An OK game

    The best FPS story in years and great guns

    The game of the year

    The best RPG of the year AFAIC (says 2011 on the disc)

    None except UC3 in the charts

    The children have a few - again not in charts, no Sackboy, nor Lego, nor some skeleton sword game.

    Perhaps I should buy these chart games?

    Or should I stick to my own tastes?

    1. Ben 42

      Stick to your own tastes

      My experience has been that when I play games that sell gazillions and chart in the top 5 or 10, I'm disappointed.

  13. SpaMster
    Facepalm

    Zumba Fitness buyers

    Hang your heads in shame!

    1. MJI Silver badge

      I read this as

      Zombie fitness

  14. RyokuMas
    Mushroom

    Boooooorrrrrinnnnngggg!!!!!

    Here's a novel idea - best 10 indie games of the year!

    It's obvious that the titles with the biggest budgets are going to be the top sellers, so how about a category for the homebrew developers who can't afford the huge advertising campaign, but whose originality often far outstrips the tired out formulae of the AAA-titles?

    1. Greg J Preece

      Hell yes! And straight onto my list would be Bastion and Hard Reset. I never quite "got" Painkiller, pretty and violent as it was, but I loved Hard Reset. Bastion was just very very cool.

  15. Eddy Ito

    It seems the wii has its own market niche leaning strongly on fitness games but I also assume that some of the zumba and just dance sales were the kinect version. It would be interesting to know how those two split as a comparison of wii vs kinect and perhaps kinect vs regular xbox controller. It does seem pretty clear that couch potato play is more popular than either wii or kinect but perhaps we just need a title like "Battle of Yoga Masters 4: the Kama Sutra Warrior".

    1. Greg J Preece

      Darkwind

      Back on the PS2 I used to play a VR beat-em-up called Darkwind, using the Gametrak. The game was as ludicrous as all fighting games are, and had an obsession with jiggle physics that put even DOA to shame, but man you could work up a sweat on that game (not like that, you filthy sods). The gave showed a calorie readout every time you broke someone's face.

      Would be interesting to see it done again, though in my experience the accuracy on the Wii and Kinect is a bit suspect, and the Move has serious, game-breaking drift issues in a lot of games - infuriatingly enough, all the rail shooters except Child of Eden.

      1. MJI Silver badge

        Move drift, seen but no problem.

        I have heard of this but I don't get it on Killzone, nor on Resistance.

        I did see a little on a KZ Move screen after calibration - recalibrated and then it was fine.

        In games if calibrated correctly - no problems.

        1. Greg J Preece

          It does seem to depend on the game. In Razing Storm, Dead Space: Extraction and House of the Dead: Overkill, I've calibrated the gun properly, held the gun steady, and watched the reticle drift off by 20, 30cm, easy. Really isn't acceptable, especially if you're fighting for rankings.

          The GunCon3 has no such problems, but that only works for the Razing Storm collection.

          1. MJI Silver badge

            GJP : Strange?

            Did a quick search, looks like drift is caused by wobbles during calibration.

            I rest my forearms on a cushion on a little table in front of me.

            I have read about disabling the mgnetic sensor as well.

            1. Greg J Preece

              Tried all of the tricks, I'm afraid. The problem even varies in magnitude between plays. Sometimes Overkill is playable with the odd recalibration, and sometimes the drift is so fast that between me calibrating and shooting the "back to game" button, there's already a 7cm drift.

              It's infuriating that the Wii version is more playable, given it's on that Nintendo piece of shit, doesn't support Motion+ (none of the light gun games do) and has framerate issues up the arse. It's more infuriating that I paid for a second copy of game I alreay own, and it doesn't work properly. Same goes for Dead Space: Extraction.

              1. MJI Silver badge

                Oh dear

                Sorry out of suggestions.

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