As far as I know, they don’t really celebrate Thanksgiving across the pond (and let’s be honest, what the hell is there really to be thankful for this year anyway), but Black Friday has become something of a universal thing on the digital front. Those in the UK also participated big time in the American tradition this go around as well.
As reported by GamesIndustry, the Black Friday week ending November 28th saw an increase of just under 50% year over year from 2019. It’s interesting, because this also comes with a 20% decrease in physical sales in the region. It makes sense with the pandemic as well as the overall decline in physical sales in general in the region. Football Manager 2021 took the top spot followed by Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Everything else was pretty close to what you would expect with maybe one exception of 2018’s God of War coming in for a quick re-entry at the bottom.
Keep in mind that this data itself in incomplete as several companies, notably Nintendo and Bethesda, do not share their data so certain games won’t be present for obvious reasons. Either way, however, it was a big week for digital in the good ol’ UK.
1 Football Manager 2021
2 Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
3 FIFA 21
4 Grand Theft Auto 5
5 Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
6 Watch Dogs Legion
7 Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
8 Spider-Man: Miles Morales
9 Rainbow Six Siege
10 God of War