After Watch Dogs launched a little undercooked, I had a bad feeling about The Division. Delays, huge ambitious concept, combine that with the fact Ubisoft has been on a bit of a bad run lately — it all added up to The Division not really hitting the mark.
But if the numbers are to be believed, The Division has been a monster success.
It’s always wise to be wary of numbers that come directly from a press release or an official website, but it’s difficult to argue in this case. The Division has made US$330 million in its first five days of release. DAYS.
According to Ubisoft itself, The Division is its fastest selling game ever. Considering this is a company that’s published multiple Splinter Cell and Assassin’s Creed games, that’s a pretty big deal. That US$330 million number — it also places The Division as having the best opening week of new game franchise ever.
These are estimated numbers at this point. Ubisoft states the numbers are a combination of “GFK Chart-Track, first parties, retail customer sell-through and internal estimates” — but there’s the anecdotal evidence. Every goddamn person in my PS4 friends list is playing this video game right now.
I wonder how it’s all going to play out. Will it have the same issues as Destiny in the long run? Is Ubisoft prepped to support this game in the way it needs to be supported? Time will tell but, for now, The Division has been a dramatic success for Ubisoft.
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43 responses to “The Division Is Making A Buttload Of Money”
Haven’t felt the pull myself yet, with Dark Souls 3 a month away I didn’t feel like good timing to start another MMO, felt the game would feel a lot like splatoon as in I would desperately want to play it but to many distractions and diversions out at the same time.
Im glad im staying away from it. Pile of shame is piling up FAST!
Ah yes, DS3. I am also looking at No Man’s Sky. And to think I was convinced at the the end of last year that I am not going to buy many games in 2016.
Except The Division isn’t really an MMO. It’s a solo or small group game with open ended pvp and random loot drops once you finish the story.
You can of course do the pvp prior to finishing the story but that’s up to the player.
lol I been PvP’ing since level 6 haha Best way to get decent gear 🙂
Don’t really need “decent” gear until you’re in pvp or the level 30 challenges. What you get from the story is good enough to do the story.
Don’t need it, but its fun to get and you may as well as they have the different sections in the DZ specifically for lower level players. May as well take advantage of it, even if the gear will just be replaced in a level or two 🙂
I didn’t go in the dark zone early on because I felt like it was a waste of time since you don’t get regular levels in the dark zone. Got up to level 30 before I started exploring there for real. Turns out I’m not a big fan of packs of 10 year olds trolling you because they know you can’t fight back. Oh well, that’s why I turned off voice comms I guess.
Edit: Oh wow, I’m looking at a two week old article. Did not realize, wouldn’t have bothered leaving a comment if I did.
From the TV-adds and gameplay i’ve seen would this come from product placement as well? e.g. billboards in the background as well …
All the ads, shops etc in the game are made up. They seem to have put a huge amount of effort into the fake brands, it’s really impressive actually.
Especially the graffiti! I’ve been taking so many pics of it all, is amazing well done
Loot based games really draw people in.
330mil in 5 days is crazy! Does that exclude preorders though? Because technically the game has been on sale for months, but people have only been able to play it in the last week. It is a bit ambiguous. Is it 330m in sales in the last 5 days, or 330m total sales?
I’m pretty sure that would include pre-orders. A pre-order doesn’t really count as a sale until release day. Often there’s only a small deposit paid anyway, and even if it’s paid for in full up front the customer can cancel and refund it before the game comes out, so it’s still not really a sale until the game is delivered to the customer.
It probably also includes copies shipped to stores but which are still sitting on a shelf, waiting for a customer to buy it and take it home.
Speaking for myself, a player traditionally shy away from any kind of online games, I am having a blast with the division. The only other MMO type of game I have played is destiny and I prefer the division. It has a serviceable story, an excellent leveling and looting system, and visually just beautiful. Not sure how long the attraction will last, but at least for now I am having lots of fun playing it.
Was going to stay away from this after dropping the tablet support they’d been hyping. That was its big seller for me being able to casually jump in and help the team out with a drone controlled via tablet.
But after a family member got it for PS4 and I saw it live in action I had to grab it for my PC. Now I’ve just go to convince my Steam friends to play since most rarely buy AAA games.
Too bad I am playing on PS4, otherwise I’d join you! That’s another thing I liked about the division: All the missions I have played so far are seemingly designed for solo play as well as with friends. Obviously it is MUCH more fun playing as a team, but at least it’s playable solo.
Leveling is playable Solo. I have my doubts about post-leveling or “end game” solo. I haven’t reached it yet, but so far what I’m reading from people who have is that all end game progression (including crafting) is limited to PvP (which I guess you could do Solo) or 4 person “Challenge Mode” PvE missions (where from all reports, enemies are all equivalent to the story mode “bosses” and will one/two shot you etc).
It won’t bother me too much if that is the case, I wasn’t really intending to play past the end of the story (I’ve got better things to play than grind for rare loot drops). But I’m hoping there’s something I can do to progress my character every time I log in down the track etc.
But don’t you need more than 1 to be called a franchise? Dictionary says:
“a general title or concept used for creating or marketing a series of products, typically films or television shows.”
Basically it’s a franchise if they state its a franchise. All depends on if they plan to continue supporting it and putting out more content in the future which in this case is a yes. Also it’s Ubisoft – everything they do is a franchise these days.
Best opening week of a new IP might be a better way to phrase it.
Of course its gonna be a franchise. Look at assassin’s creed, that piece of shit series was supposed to be a trilogy but after seeing how popular it was they decided to milk the shit out of it and its now something that resembles justin bieber, it just hangs around and you wish it would die because everytime you see it it makes you wish that murder was acceptable by god.
I’m really baffled by The Division’s success. In the months leading up to launch people knew about the game but nobody really seemed quite certain what exactly it was supposed to be, which I figured was a bad sign for its sales prospects.
And then there was the beta, which was one of the most dull, uninspired, and criminally boring gaming experiences I’ve had in a while.
I think there’s some kind of collective psychosis going. Like when people were flipping out about Bioshock Infinite being the 10/10 citizen kane of gaming. And three weeks later people realised how bland it actually was, despite a few good aspects.
Are you sure you played the same beta as everyone else? I thought it was a pretty good game in the beta, looked at the extra content that had been left out and decided to pre-order because that extra content added to make a great game.
The beta was only a bit boring due to limited content. Play for 3-4hrs and you were done but it was enough of a taste for me.
Honestly, this is the first negative I’ve heard about the beta. Every single person I’ve spoken with about the game was amped after the beta
Until I played the beta I had every intention of skipping it. After playing it I was sold.
So many of my mates have said the exact same thing lol They were on the fence, then played the beta and were instantly sold
To be clear, I don’t like Bioshock Infinite. However, arguments like that are always cheap cop outs.
They’re designed specifically so one can pull out “I told you so!” after the fact and feel vindicated. The use of “later people realised how bland it actually was” is well suited for this purpose. Especially since pretty much anything and everything can start to seem bland after any amount of time. Thus you get another “Told you so!” moment to throw in someone’s face.
I’ve put in nearly 50 hours of playtime on The Division since release and I’m still enjoying it, but I’ll absolutely stop playing when I get bored. Just as I do with EVERY other game ever.
But now if I quit next week you’d claim that it because it was a shitty, bland game and take it as validation that your opinion on a game, that I’m guessing you haven’t actually played beyond the beta, was the correct and superior one.
Meanwhile I’d be thinking I absolutely got my money’s worth.
If the game is just not your ‘thing’ that’s all well and good, can’t fault anyone for that, but the psychosis spiel is absolutely laughable.
It couldn’t be that people simply enjoy things you don’t, nah… Gotta be that collective psychosis!
The obvious hyperbole was the hint that my comment was not meant anywhere near as seriously as you seem to be taking this.
I do expect popular opinion of the game to cool considerably over the next couple of weeks, and some people will be scratching their heads wondering why they liked the game at all.
I do not actually believe that people who like the game have suffered a mental break, nor that nobody could possibly continue to like it in the long-term.
I don’t care about throwing anything in anyone’s face. To be honest only a single person in my regular gaming crew still wanted to buy it after the beta, so even if I wanted to there’d be nobody to lord over.
really quite a popular game, except amongst the media of course.
Yeah, the surprising thing here is how well its done despite the media and many popular YouTubers trashing it and showing it to be worse than it is.
It’s a pretty damn good game.
Honestly I think a lot of the hate comes from it solely being an Ubisoft game.
They’re fighting an uphill battle with pretty much every game they release these days. Granted it’s from their own mistakes in the past with other games.
But really it’s a very solid game mechanically, probably one of the best cover shooters I’ve ever played.
It is admittedly a bit light on ‘end-game’ content though at the moment, but that’s something I personally expect and factor so I’m not disappointed when buying any new game like this.
Yeah, same. After playing many MMOs at release and experiencing the lack of end game I’ve come to expect that on new games.
Division isn’t really even an MMO, it just has extra stuff to do and pvp once you finish the game.
If I’m being honest I’m actually kind of enjoying the lack of end-game at the moment.
Where unlike something such as Destiny I don’t have to spend hours each day grinding for gains so small they quickly begin to feel worthless.
yeah I think the game will grow a lot over the coming months, as many of other games that launch with minimal end game content have done in the past. It’s nice to know that it’ll be growing from such a solid foundation
That future growth you mention is the primary reason I’m so glad for the success it is having.
As It should mean they’ll absolutely push forward with supporting it. Instead of just throwing in the bare minimum effort required like some developers fall back to after their games release to a mediocre reception.
I hope this is the case, I really do!
Is fast becoming one of my all time favorite games. Does not suprise me at all, my entire friends list seems to be playing The Division lol
same haha, 7 online last night, 5 in the division.
Can’t get excited about it, was on the fence and multiple hours of watching streams at work has cemented my disdain. IMHO.
Destiny by Ubisoft.
Good while levelling. Needs more to do at 30 though having hit. 30 in 2 days after release with such a short levelling time the game really needed more to do at level cap.
Dude you are entitled to your opinion, but some people continually like something, for instance just cause 2, I can play that game constantly and never get bored there are other games as well. You taste or imagination is just different/ limited