Call of Duty tops Steam charts despite surge of Game Pass players thanks to best game in years
CALL of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 caused controversy as people complained that it didn’t offer anything new to the series.
After reusing old maps, and not changing up the gameplay in a significant way, people felt like it was a soulless cash grab.
However, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has turned the tide, and people are praising it as the best game the series has seen in years.
With an in-depth campaign full of tactical battles and stealthy puzzle-solving, as well as the major changes like omnimovement in the multiplayer, fans are hooked.
A massive change from last year is that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was launched on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass on the day of release.
Previously, Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard said that it wouldn’t put Call of Duty games onto a subscription service like Game Pass.
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However, following Microsoft’s $69billion purchase of the company, a number of recent Call of Duty titles including Black Ops 6 joined the subscription service.
Analysts believed that Black Ops 6’s inclusion in Game Pass would reduce sales on both Xbox and PC, but it appears that this wasn’t the case.
Black Ops 6 is the current best-selling item on Steam beating popular free to play games like Throne and Liberty and even the company’s popular handheld console the Steam Deck.
Another recent release, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, takes the fourth spot, further showing Call of Duty’s popularity.
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Most people buy Call of Duty to play it online consistently until the next entry in the series is released.
It would only take four months to spend more on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions than you would if you purchased the game outright.
Steaming Sales
Call of Duty is often the best-selling game of the year, so it doesn’t surprise us to see that it’s topping the Steam charts.
Analysts believe that its inclusion in Game Pass has driven 3-4million users to the platform, which is a big boon for Microsoft.
However, the fact that people are still choosing to buy the game from Steam, despite the fact that they can get it for ‘free’ with Game Pass is interesting.
It goes to show that people still prefer to own their games rather than rent them via a subscription.
If you want to read more about the game, check out our Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 review.
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