Publishers nowadays don’t talk much about sale numbers..unless it’s really good for them to be proud of it. And so that has happened with Mafia III, managing to get 4.5 million copies of the game shipped in its first week of sales.
Publishers 2K even confirmed that it is the fastest selling title they have ever released, faster than their other major selling franchises like the Bioshock and Borderlands series, as well as the annual NBA 2Ks. The 4.5 million number contains both digital and retail sales.
Washington Post sees this as risk being paid off. Mafia III is a bold step thematically and story-wise. While the center of the series has always been about the Italian Mob, now they are the adversaries you face as Lincoln Clay. Having a protagonist of a different race than most games offer and portraying an authentic look at the society during the end of the 60’s in fictional New Orleans, even the racism, definitely pays off, as the unique setting and intriguing plot has been the game’s strongest selling point, and most probably the reason why so many people bought it.
On the hand, the game did not reviewed well for a AAA title, plenty of 6-7/10 scores with most complaints pointing out on technical problems- glitches and bugs are apparent in the launch build- and a repetitive, simplistic structure of gameplay. Though there were no early reviews as bigger outlets out there did not receive advance review copies. So by the time the reviews are up, most people who would pre-order or hyped about the game would’ve bought it on day 1 already.
It’s a mixed sign. It’s good to see developers and publisher take bigger risks with their games, but these games are not technically sound as one would expect to be, and many consumers probably missed out this tiny detail. Hopefully with enough post-launch support this could be ironed out, and all those 4.5 million copies sold led to at least half of the buyers satisfied with the purchase and didn’t return their copies.