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Borderlands 3 has become the fastest-selling game in 2K history, shifting more than five million units in its opening five days.
Along with claims the latest Borderlands game has achieved “multiple record-setting milestones”, 2K says within its first five days, 50 per cent more consumers had purchased Borderlands 3 when compared with Borderlands 2, making it the “fastest-selling [game] in 2K’s history, as well as the highest-selling title for the label on PC in a five-day window”.
The latest sales bring the Borderlands franchise’s total sales to exceed $1 billion in net bookings, becoming the second franchise in 2K history to achieve this milestone.
“Borderlands 3 marks 2K’s highest percentage of digital sales for a cross-platform, cross-distribution title, with more than 70 per cent of consumers purchasing the game digitally in its first five days of release,” a press release from 2K said. “In addition, Borderlands 3 delivered the highest pre-order sales figures to date for a 2K title, as well as broke pre-order records with the Epic Games Store. Initial sales of Borderlands 3 have exceeded the label’s expectations and, in particular, PC sales of the title through the Epic Games Store have been incredibly strong.”
Borderlands 3 was also Twitch’s Most-Watched Game on its launch day, and has maintained its position as a Top Five Most-Watched Game since launch, clocking more than 14 million hours of content viewed on Twitch – “more than half the viewership that Borderlands 2 generated in its seven-year lifetime”.
“Borderlands 3’s incredibly successful launch is a result of the hard work and longstanding partnership between Gearbox Software and 2K,” said 2k president, David Ismailer. “We are immensely grateful to everyone who played a role in making the Borderlands series the global, pop culture phenomenon that it is today, including hundreds of developers at Gearbox and many who have made this their life’s work. We also want to thank the Borderlands community. Mayhem does not happen by itself, and their passion for the series is what drives us to make each game an amazing experience.”
In a series of tweets over launch day – Friday, September 13th – and the weekend, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford confirmed the PC launch has seen twice as many players hop onto the looter-shooter despite backlash from fans that saw Borderlands 2 reviewed bombed on Steam when 2K announced the partnership with Epic.
“Fun Fact: On PC, the data is that the launch day peak concurrent players of Borderlands 3 is about *twice-as-high* as the all time peak concurrent players of Borderlands 2,” Pitchford wrote on Twitter. “WOW! You guys are great!
“Incredible day with new peak concurrency (and climbing),” Pitchford added the following day. “Best numbers in Gearbox history!”
The store is Epic’s newest and most intriguing innovation, though it certainly didn’t appear overnight. “We built the technology long before we had a business model supporting it,” CEO Tim Sweeney recently told MCV. “[Fortnite] accelerated everything by bringing in the large audience of engaged gamers required for a successful storefront launch, and the e-commerce economies of scale for an 88-12 per cent revenue-sharing model.”
“Ubisoft supports our model and trusts us to deliver a smooth journey for players, from pre-purchase to the game’s release,” Sweeney added, reflecting on The Divisions 2’s exclusivity. “But delivery is only half the deal, so is Epic offering financial incentives, above and beyond we’ve worked to ensure it’s genuinely worthwhile for developers to move to the Epic Games store.”
