Well this has both a positive and a negative side; it means the PC gamers are not as dumb as IW believed. The negative side, however, is that PC gamers have become such a minority group, that no matter what we do, we're last on the "to do list". And looking at this from a standpoint of a company such as IW, I must say I see their point; why cater to the needs of such an experienced and demanding community as the PC gamers, when you can sell practically anything to the console gamers AND make a lot more money?
No disrespect to all the intelligent console gamers (I onw a ps3 myself, although it's more of a bluray player than a console for me), but the console market itself is, and has always beed, a much more forgiving one.
Just my 2c..

Here in Inadianapolis the Best Buy stores had shelves full of unsold PC boxes and no-one I know is buying it. It is equivalent to a crap vhs copy of an XBox expansion pack for $60..... I don't think so.

@ iRageQuit

"6% of 9.4 million is 564,000 – copies. CoD 4 for PC sold around 2.4 million copies. So MW2 PC sales are down 1,836,000 compared to CoD 4 for PC.

1,836,000 x $60 = $110,160,000"

I'm sorry. 2.4 million copies of COD4 on PC sold in WEEK ONE? Or am I missing something?

CoD = Consoles only Dikheads.

@JJK
in the uk, supermarkets have stopped selling PC games and the shelves in GAME, HMV stores and others] are selling more Console games, 85-90%, then PC games. They didn't even put [the pc version of] NFS:S/MW2 in the new release section, even the advert for MW2 doesn't mention its for the PC....

Relevant article:

"VGChartz can exclusively reveal that according to our preliminary data, Modern Warfare 2 sold around 9.4 million copies in week one.

Breaking the sales down by console, Xbox 360 took 56% of total sales, PS3 took 38% and the remaining 6% of sales were for the PC version."

6% of 9.4 million is 564,000 - copies. CoD 4 for PC sold around 2.4 million copies. So MW2 PC sales are down 1,836,000 compared to CoD 4 for PC.

1,836,000 x $60 = $110,160,000

So if IW was expecting the MW2 PC sales to be equal to CoD 4 PC sales at $60 a pop for just 1 MW2 PC copy per 1 customer, IW has up to now lost $110,160,000 from what it made with CoD 4 PC by refusing to have dedicated servers, and mod tools, punk buster, and removing the lean function, yayyy way to go Infinity Ward, great stuff.

And here in Britain/UK the sales of MW2 PC are really poor:

"Modern Warfare 2: U.K. PC Sales Lagging Way Behind
Nov 16, 2009 at 6:53 PM - Andrew Burnes - 35 Comments
1.78 million copies sold in the U.K., but of those only 53,400 (3%) are in the hands of PC gamers, making Modern Warfare 2 PC a pretty dismal failure:

As expected, the Xbox 360 version was the best seller with over one million sales on its own and GBP 38.5 million in revenues, a number which was also more than last week's entire total for the UK games market.

Only the controversial PC version of the game could be considered a disappointment, entering at only number five in the individual formats chart. The PC version accounted for just three per cent of overall sales, compared to 57 per cent for the 360 and 40 per cent for the PlayStation 3.

Using these percentages, PlayStation 3 sales can be estimated at 712,000 units (with GBP 27 million in revenues) and the PC at 53,400 units.

Steam sales may be through the roof, but we'll never know - Valve refuses to release figures"

A hundred goddamn million dollars lost. Wow, just wow.

How is this irrelevant?

Through their ignorance and haughtiness, the head-honchos of Activision have lost 20% of their potential revenue.

Considering the utter lack of community, mods, and positive word-of-mouth that MW2's lack of dedicated servers and mod tools brought with it, I think it's unlikely that sales will pick up in the future.

MW2's financial success was a foregone conclusion, Kotick or not. But if I were a major shareholder of Activision I'd want heads to roll, because even at 5% share ownership, that's at least a few million lost over nothing.

Well If you could buy the PC version in the shops it would help, everywhere I went that sold the console version did not stock the PC version. There is only a handful of shops here in the uk that still sell PC games and even then it's limited shelf space.

@JJK

I guess I can agree with you on that.

I really hate when all the games are "consolized"

Extremely dumbed down and runs like garbage.

But, I still have Battlefield to look after to. Still clinching on to a little hope.

"$600 million > $550 million"

Sure. But 550 $ million is a verified number, "600" is only your speculation.

Of course it's obvious that they could make more money without all the controversy. This game (PC version) probably isn't doing as well as they'd want to. But it's not doing as bad as many (so called) haters would like to.

And don't forget that you can't simply compare 15% of the CoD4 from over 2 years ago with 3% of MW2. The PC market is getting smaller every year (in UK - no doubt). The PC is slowly becoming a niche, when it comes to games. So it's not like that the numbers are smaller, only because of the boycott or controversy.

Imho it's hard to expect that Activision/IW will cry much about this, with the overall sales numbers they're getting. Not to mention that Steam sales are not in this equation...

Also, someone posted footage of the Global Thermonuclear War mode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYWvAFOwDUU

JJK-

Nobody claimed that MW2 failed overall.

The (correct) claim is that MW2 failed on PC, and seemingly for no reason other than a grave miscalculation on Activision's part, or some strange desire to piss PC gamers off.

$600 million > $550 million

Yeah awesome news.

Next time they won't bother even porting it to the pc at all \o/

You have to be careful for two reasons:

Firstly you just couldn't buy a copy in stores here no matter how hard you tried.

And secondly, we like Steam which probably isn't represented in those numbers.

@JJK

But don't forget, these lost sales translate into MORE sales for their competitors.

Losing money to your competitors is many many times worse than losing money alone.

And also, if they can pull this with the PC, they will pull the same stunt on the consoles.

I can only but hope the IW marketing bobos don't consider this the penultimate reason to completely stop supporting the PC platform.

May they make the right conclusions.

I think some people can't understand some things. They've made over 550 MILLION US DOLLARS on this game!!! Wake the fuck up. It's the biggest launch in history of e-games EVER. I want fail like that! You really so naive to think that they care abut PC sales in this situation? I don't think so... and that's what makes me worried.

And don't forget that the PC version was like no cost at all for them - after all it was a straight port from consoles. For them the consoles are the real target now, don't you get it? And they are still making money on PC (3% is still a shitload of money, + it's ONLY UK data).

I actually won't be surprised if they dump PC (like in CoD3, but this time - for good). You people will play Bad Company 2, Activision and IW will keep making BILLIONS on CoD for consoles - everybody will be happy I guess.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a PC gamer. But this bullshit how IW has failed with MW2 is so foolish, that I'm not sure if I supposed to laugh or cry...

cheers

IW = Bumfudge!

This is amazing news hopefully this will send Treyarch a big message for the next game. I also dearly hope Activision and Infinity Ward realise the monetary cost of pissing off an entire fanbase.

On a side note, I hope this sets John Carmack, that goddamn sellout, straight after he has begun flirting with P2P multiplayer for Rage.

Rage does not have the massive PR advantage of MW2, and nobody but "hardcore" gamers even know who John Carmack is, so his name recognition will be worth nothing, and on the contrary even have a negative impact, if he continues on his course.

@PRILLI

Don't forget, this thread is about the PC sales only. The link in your reply was the PC sales + Consoles.

So Kotick's plan to milk PC gamers for all they are worth failed.

How many of those 3% will still be playing the game when the first DLC comes out, and how many will actually buy it instead of finally quitting MW2 for good then?

Acti made sure that pretty much the entire PC community switched camps and rallied around EA and DICE instead, and if I'm not mistaken, PC pre-orders for BFBC2 are already more than those for Xbox and PS3 combined.

Not only that, but they lost all the longevity of their game through mods, long-term sales, and good worth-of-mouth advertising as well.

What do you think people will tell someone who asks for advice on buying a game and asks them if MW2 is worth it?

This way, with the mods, competitiveness and community that dedicated servers allow, PC sales of MW2 would have been much higher initially, and would have doubled over the game's lifespan. Considering the massive media attention and public awareness of the game, this could have meant as much as 20% of all versions being sold on PC after a year or so.

Instead Kotick settled for a quick shakedown, and all he'll get from that is spare change.

Hmm thats mysterious... here is a link which says that activision makes an record conversion... So UK must be the only country...

(germanlink)

http://www.pcgames.de/aid,699744/Modern-Warfare-2-Rekord-Umsatz-fuer-Actvision-und-200-Mio-Dollar-Herstellungskosten/PC/News/

Yeah! get the message yet IW? GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!

Lets see when the "only because its pirated so much" excuse comes out.

Yeah, IW defeated =)

Epic win