Why did so many people buy Elden Ring? | GI Asks
Christopher Dring
Head of Games B2B
Wednesday 6th April 2022
FromSoftware and Bandai Namco has a monster hit on its hands with Elden Ring.
The game is within the'Souls-like' genre, a type of action adventure game that is notoriously tough. The flagship brand in this genre is FromSoftware's Dark Souls series. The last Dark Souls game, Dark Souls 3, sold an impressive ten million copies over four years.
Elden Ring sold 12 million in three weeks.
It's the sort of performance usually reserved for more mainstream sports games and shooters. So what was it about this title that resonated so strongly with consumers? Was it the new open world setting? George RR Martin's involvement? The huge amounts of press coverage and high review scores?
We decided to ask the gamers themselves. GamesIndustry.biz has a panel of elite gamers, attendees of shows such as EGX and PAX, who own multiple platforms and are frequent gamers. We spoke to them last year to ask them why they didn't buy the new Call of Duty. And now they're back to share some ideas as to why Elden Ring was such a breakthrough success.
Over 200 gamers responded to this survey, and out of those, 35% said they purchased Elden Ring. 24% said they were entirely new to the genre and had never played a 'Souls-like' game before.
When we asked this group of new players why they were interested in Elden Ring (they could select multiple responses), 80% said it was the open world setting that attracted them this time. 67% said it was the critical reception that won them over, while 28% said it was the result of influencer recommendation (whether via YouTube or social media).
Friend recommendation accounted for 40% of new Elden Ring customers, while 27% were drawn in by George RR Martin's
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