Why have AAA sales been down in 2016? The many explanations are simple.

Dishonored 2

Dishonored 2 may still sell very well, but it’s not surprising it didn’t break any records at release, and is down 38 per cent compared to its predecessor in the UK. It was the first new game since Bethesda announced it would be in full control of the pre-release messaging and not allow early reviews. As such, it’s wise to avoid pre-ordering all Bethesda games, but especially the first to be released after the controversial change in policy.

Just a month earlier, Mafia III didn’t permit release day reviews because it was, frankly, terrible. I actually played the whole thing, because apparently I like to punish myself. It is a glitchy mess and essentially only has one mission repeated for 25 hours (but tells a decent story). 2K knew that, so blocked early reviews accordingly, and plied critics with promotional booze and influencers with branded record players that look good on Instagram. So it was a fair assumption Bethesda was doing the same with Dishonored 2, despite offering some bullsh*t excuses.

Yep, that’s whiskey. #mafiaIII

A photo posted by Steve Wright (@swrightau) on Oct 6, 2016 at 5:06pm PDT

The sceptics were right to voice their concerns, as it launched with serious technical issues on PC. Dishonored 2 is a fantastic game, and we didn’t have any issues playing on Xbox One, but it was right to assume there might be technical problems, driving the censorship of early reviews. Reports suggest those issues have largely been fixed, but combined with its much lower price across all retailers just two weeks after launch, it was a mistake to buy Dishonored 2 before now.

It also didn’t help that it’s Bethesda’s niche franchise. If it were an Elder Scrolls or Fallout, the lack of reviews mightn’t have hurt sales much. But with Dishonored 2, players evidently decided to wait to learn more, and didn’t have the urgency to rush in blind. Already heavily reduced, you’ve saved over $50 for doing so.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

CoD has still sold very well, but hasn’t performed like the unstoppable Call of Duty instalments earlier this generation. Normally Activision has inundated us with record-breaking stats by now, and those haven’t come. GameStop also singled it out as not reaching expectations.

The mild decline of Call of Duty had to happen eventually. We saw it with Assassin’s Creed, leading Ubisoft to skip at least one year (although we got a fairly basic re-release compilation instead). Activision probably won’t do the same, but it anticipated and enacted its plan to delay franchise fatigue harming sales: a tantalising remaster.

Infinite Warfare presents the weakest CoD multiplayer this generation, a considerable factor for its reduced sales, but also bundles the highly sought after Modern Warfare Remastered. Fans were furious it couldn’t be bought separately, but judging by what my friends are regularly playing, that didn’t stop them buying it (and barely playing IW). Sales might have been much worse without Modern Warfare Remastered. The stage is set for Modern Warfare 2 and 3 to be remastered and bundled with the next two iterations (raising their base price from $100 to $130 in the process), priming Infinity Ward to return with Modern Warfare 4 in 2019; but will sales have dropped considerably by then?

While I suspect Modern Warfare Remastered helped Infinite Warfare avoid a drastic plunge in sales, rumours of a stand alone release might have hurt it, as well. If my theory that MW2 and MW3 remasters are coming over the next two years, I doubt it will be released standalone for some time; Activision has found a way to make keen nostalgic players buy the new games and spend even more money on them. But taking the choice away from consumers is off-putting. If Modern Warfare Remastered had been sold on its own accord earlier in the year, for say $50, Call of Duty sales combined might have broken all records in 2016.

There’s also the simple fact that Black Ops III and Advanced Warfare are still going strong. For players that spent upwards of $150 including DLC, the incentive to upgrade every year is starting to seriously dwindle — especially when Infinite Warfare is a step backwards.