Despite Remedy and 505 Games looking to bring new content to Control, it seems like the third-person shooter isn’t getting over with gamers. We reported that Control has faced heavy discounts and how it dropped off the UK charts during the second week, but this time around a sneak peek at the U.S. charts by an analyst offer an even grimmer look.
Control is to gain a photo mode this fall, the “Expeditions” which is a new game mode set for this December, the first expansion dubbed “The Foundation” set for release in early 2020, and a second expansion rocking the moniker “Awe” sometime in the mid-part of 2020.
Nevertheless, the game that was already facing an uphill struggle due to featuring yet another strong, independent female protagonist, the whole gender equality stream initiative, and the Epic Games Store timed exclusivity all melded together to make the perfect recipe for “get woke, go broke.”
The official blog for PlayStation goers blog.us.playstation.com for early August revealed that Control did not make it into the top 20 downloaded games:
- Madden NFL 20
- Minecraft: PlayStation 4 Edition
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Marvel’s Spider-Man
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
- Remnant: From the Ashes
- Black Desert
- Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds
- Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2
- Rocket League
- EA Sports UFC 3
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition
- ARK: Survival Evolved
- No Man’s Sky
- Star Wars Battlefront II
- Battlefield 4
- Need for Speed Payback
- Overwatch
- The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan
The current Xbox top paid games list on microsoft.com sees Control at the 35th spot, which is a shame for a new triple-A game:
- NBA 2K20 Digital Deluxe
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Wreckfest
- Far Cry 5
- Gears 5
- FINAL FANTASY VIII Remastered
- Grand Theft Auto V
- UNO
- Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
- Destiny 2: Forsaken – Complete Collection
- MONOPOLY PLUS
- Torchlight II
- The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man Of Medan
- Remnant: From the Ashes
- Gang Beasts
- GreedFall
- Madden NFL 20: Superstar Edition
- Rocket League
- DRAGON BALL XENOVERSE 2
- Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection
It’s safe to say all of the above is empirical. However, an early peek at the latest research by The NPD Group (or the U.S. top entertainment department) sees Control at the 23rd spot. In other words, the game isn’t even in the top ten.
This information comes from the social justice activist himself — that is a U.S. video games industry analyst — Mat Piscatella:
Quick hit takes – Wow Minecraft, Wow GTAV, Age of Wonders surprised, no digital tracking for Control hurts, software was rough overall, but should recover in Sept. Switch carrying hardware in a big way.
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) September 12, 2019
23rd for the month.
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) September 12, 2019
To clarify the situation, the U.S. numbers for September haven’t arrived yet. Piscatella gave gamers and analysts an early sneak peek. The full numbers are due out later
Lastly, it looks like Tim “the big boy” Sweeney and the Epic Games Store have funded the upcoming DLC for Control despite it selling about as well as a discounted version of EA and BioWare’s Anthem.