Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Lack of Campaign Did Not Hurt Sales, Says NPD Analyst

Yesterday’s NPD report confirmed that Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 ended up topping the software charts in the month of October, which surely came as a surprise to a fair few people. For one thing, Red Dead Redemption 2 launched in the same month, and for another, in the lead up to its launch, Black Ops 4 had proven to be controversial, owing to it excising the single player campaign, long a mainstay of the series, entirely.

Well, it seems like that removal of the single player campaign did not hurt its performance on the market even slightly. This is a point reaffirmed by Mat Piscatella of the NPD Group, who, posting on Twitter, confirmed that the lack of the campaign for the game did not affect its sales at all. Which seems to further reinforce the idea that, at least as far as Call of Duty is concerned, people are really buying it for the multiplayer—which Black Ops 4 does with aplomb, thanks to the traditional multiplayer mode, Zombies mode, and Blackout Battle Royale mode on offer.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is available now on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

So, quick hit takes from the October 2018 U.S. Video Game data from The NPD Group:
– The lack of a SP campaign did not hurt Black Ops IIII launch month sales in the slightest
– On the full game Video Game side, year to date, both Physical and Digital game sales are up YoY (cont.)

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) November 20, 2018