Star Wars Battlefront II Couldn't Top Sales Charts During Debut

Star Wars Battlefront II still found its way into the higher spots of the UK sales charts, but it [...]

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Star Wars Battlefront II still found its way into the higher spots of the UK sales charts, but it was unable to take the No. 1 spot in its first week on the market.

The game from EA Dice was instead beat by Call of Duty: WWII, the launch week of Battlefront II marking the third week that the latest Call of Duty game has been on the market. While the sales charts created from sales in the UK only account for physical sales and not the digital market, GamesIndustry.biz reported that the physical sales of Battlefront II were significantly lower than those of the first game in the newly rebooted franchise, Star Wars Battlefront. Down 61 percent compared to the physical sales of the first game, some of that certainly has to do with consumers moving towards digital sales as opposed to physical. However, that's still quite the gap to close if the second game wants to get close to the first.

A factor that much more likely influenced the comparatively lower sales is the ongoing discussion about Battlefront II's in-game economy that's been criticized at every turn. The game has loot boxes and in-game purchases, two features that'll make consumers wary from the beginning, but it also included pay-to-win elements that allowed players to unlock iconic heroes like Darth Vader instead of amassing enough credits to unlock them through normal progression. After hearing the outcry from players and holding an AMA on Reddit to address buyers' questions and concerns, EA announced that they'd be removing microtransactions from the game, a decision that appears to be temporary.

Call of Duty: WWII, on the other hand, did much better than Infinite Warfare as the game indicates by staying on top of the charts for the third week in a row. Infinite Warfare was on the market for 7 weeks after its launch before it was able to match WWII's recent sales.

Below are the top 10 games last week in the UK:

  1. Call of Duty: WWII
  2. Star Wars Battlefront II
  3. FIFA 18
  4. Pokemon Ultra Sun
  5. Pokemon Ultra Moon
  6. Assassin's Creed Origins
  7. The Sims 4
  8. LA Noire Remastered
  9. Super Mario Odyssey
  10. Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2
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