NPD: Skipping single player didn't hurt sales for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 made the call to offer three different multiplayer modes and leave a traditional single-player campaign in the dust. Now, according to sales estimates and data from the NPD Group, it seems that the game hasn't suffered as a result of that decision. 

Following the release of the NPD Group’s October report, analyst Mat Piscatella tweeted that “the lack of a [single player] campaign did not hurt Black Ops 4 launch month sales in the slightest,” also noting that Call of Duty’s move to October from its usual November release month helped October set new monthly sales records. 

The firm’s data typically includes physical sales and some digital sales as provided by publishers, though it is worth noting that not all publishers share digital sales numbers for the report. According to October’s data, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 saw the most in terms of dollar amount sales, ahead of both Red Dead Redemption II and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, even though Black Ops 4's sales numbers do not include digital PC sales. 

Beyond that, VentureBeat’s breakdown of the report says that Black Ops 4 now has the eighth highest launch month dollar sales in the 23 years since the NPD Group first started tracking sales data. By the NPD Group’s numbers, Black Ops 4 is already the best selling game of 2018 and the second best seller in the past 12 months, second only to November 2017’s Call of Duty: WWII.