Half-Life sales

[Foxtrot]

My friend keeps saying half-life is an over rated game and it would haven ever sold as many copies if CS wasn't released...so I want to find out how many copies were sold before CS was released on half-life so I can prove him wrong...but searching for this is very hard as most of the results are crap and none of them are dated...

 

[Harryz]

By any chance is your friend a Halo fanboy?

 

[OCybrManO]

Well, Half-Life won more than 50 "Game of the Year" awards before even the first version of CS came out.

 

[Dalamari]

I think that your friend is right, but HL isn't overrated but most HL sales are because of CS I would say.

 

[Foxtrot]

By any chance is your friend a Halo fanboy?

Doom 3 and Halo.

 

[daveodeth]

Doom 3 and Halo.

well paint me shocked. Slit his throat and walk away. Best you can do for the poor chap.

 

[Direwolf]

May also point out that HL still sells, despite CS being available seperately in two different versions.

 

[mortiz]

Half-Life sold a few million even before CS was big.

 

[Warbie]

I don't think HL is overrated, but I do agree that CS is main the reason it's now such a big franchise.

Single player games draw the initial interest, but it's the multiplayer that keeps them alive .... and selling.

 

[^Ben]

Well at the moment the most reliable figures i can find for halo sales are 3 million.

And another reliable source for HL places it at the 11million mark (not including seperate sales from retail CS or playstation version)

 

[mortey]

actually i think halo sold well over 4 million

 

[^Ben]

Cool the source was from eariler this year

 

[ShadowFox]

By any chance is your friend a Halo fanboy?

Hah! I thought the same thing. Halo fans are funny. They go out of their way to insult other games.

 

[bud7miker]

Half-life was no way over-rated infact i never heard of it till my mate lent it me a few years ago, I can't thank him enough!!

 

[Roland Deschain]

The reason I love so much is that I played that game with my friends and since back then only one of us had a computer, there were four of us, shoving each other to play next.

We would come up with a system that each time you lose 20 HP, your turn was over. Better keep that shild up .

 

[blahblahblah]

Half-Life sold really well. For a high profile PC game back then to break even, a game had to sell around a 100,000 copies. Half-Life shattered that. I think it sold several million overall. CS contributed heavily to that because of people interested in CS and people loosing their HL CD.

For reference, PC games don't sell that well when compared to console games. In fact, the first week that Doom 3 was released, was the first time a PC game was on top of the sales list (sold some 300,000 copies). I'm willing to bet that ID software has made all of its money back in Doom 3.

Half-Life 2 is supposed to put to shame Doom 3 in terms of sales. It will be interesting to see if they will have enough HL2 copies to handle all of its preorders.

 

[ShadowFox]

Of course, no game, not even Halo 2 or San Andreas will sell more than the Sims 2 juggernaut.

 

[blahblahblah]

Of course, no game, not even Halo 2 or San Andreas will sell more than the Sims 2 juggernaut.

The Sims maybe the all-time selling game for the PC, but I don't think it touched any of the console records.

PC gaming is really a niche market. It's quite nice that we get such high quality games as we do (with like Doom 3 and HL2).

 

[Roland Deschain]

If EB games tells me that they can't fill my preorder, well, let's just say the city of Toronto will never be the same again *caressing my homemade hydrogen bomb*

PS: Seriously, I think I would really start screaming in the middle of the store.

 

[brink's]

I think HL sold 3-4 million copies before CS and DOD where big.

 

[ShadowFox]

The Sims maybe the all-time selling game for the PC, but I don't think it touched any of the console records.

PC gaming is really a niche market. It's quite nice that we get such high quality games as we do (with like Doom 3 and HL2).

Actually I believe the Sims is up there with the top selling games of all time. Don't quote me on that though.

[edit]
http://experts.about.com/q/1242/3149839.htm

Thanks Google!