Marvel’s Avengers has had a rough launch, and its player count on PC has reflected that. But don’t think it’s all doom-and-gloom for the superhero game – developer Crystal Dynamics has loudly proclaimed that improvements and new content are on the way, and they’ve got plenty of incentive to follow through, as Avengers has been one of the biggest sales successes of the year in the US.
Avengers was the best-selling game of September, according to US tracking group NPD, ahead of titles Super Mario 3D All-Stars, Madden NFL 21, the Tony Hawk remake, NBA 2K21, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Neither Nintendo or Take-Two publicly share their digital sales data, so Mario and NBA may have ranked slightly higher with full tracking – but either way, Avengers made a big debut.
NPD says Avengers had the biggest launch month sales of any superhero game outside of the PS4-exclusive Spider-Man back in 2018. It was the best-selling title on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One for the month, and its sales are big enough to already secure it the number seven spot in the top year-to-date titles, right between Final Fantasy VII Remake and Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.
Also of note to PC fans: Crusader Kings 3 was the seventh best-selling game of the month. Not bad for a PC-exclusive strategy game competing with some of the most recognisable gaming names in the world.
CORRECTION – There was an error on the top 20 best-sellers chart for September. The last month rankings for Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Party were incorrect. Here is the corrected version, I apologize for the error. https://t.co/P9RO1U8FnP pic.twitter.com/7eS8OBUdsY
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) October 16, 2020
So what do we make of the state of the Avengers player count on Steam right now? The game debuted with a peak of 31,165 players at launch, which is solid, but certainly not the sort of number a major triple-A release would be shooting for. Now that the launch rush has slowed down and daily peaks are closer to the 1,000-2,000 range, I think it’s safe to say Avengers has proven much more appealing to console players.
US NPD SW – Marvel's Avengers was the best-selling title of September. Launch month dollar sales of Marvel's Avengers were the 2nd highest for any superhero game in US history, trailing only Marvel's Spider-Man. Marvel's Avengers debuted as the #7 best-selling game of 2020 YTD. pic.twitter.com/mfsapBDcVd
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) October 16, 2020
But then, Anthem sold great at launch, too. I like Avengers a whole lot more than I liked Anthem, but, uh… Well, it’d at least be nice to get cross-play over here on PC.
If you’re looking for more co-op games to dive into while Avengers gets on track, you can follow that link.