How Many Units Would You Say Fallout 1+2 Sold?

[mobucks]

What 10 year old game is still sold at bestbuy? the only one I can think of is fallout and fallout 2.

 

[drgong]

I thought the original fallout games sold more then that interesting.

well they are still being sold, and computer gaming was

A) not as big as it used to be
B) Piracy was much bigger.

 

[FalloutTroll]

A lot

 

[UniversalWolf]

What 10 year old game is still sold at bestbuy? the only one I can think of is fallout and fallout 2.

Getting to be 15 years old...

It's interesting though, isn't it? You can still walk into a brick-and-mortar store and buy a boxed copy of FO, FO2, and Tactics.

 

[PlanHex]

So I saw this thing:

They never seem to research the origins of fallout, what made it so popular

Then, interpreting "popular" as "sold lots", I followed my conviction that Fallout1&2 were never really big hits and more like critical darlings that were not really particularly popular outside their niche, and went down the rabbit hole of googling for the sales figures around the time of their release.
One of the first things I found was actually this thread, so I'll leave what I found here, with quotes since so much stuff tend to get lost on the internet (like the link below to Desslock's blog-thing, or even Desslock himself).

The earlier post in this thread
http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/...you-say-fallout-1-2-sold.200521/#post-3992188
does not cite any specific news article (other than the year), but is referencing
http://archive.nma-fallout.com/content.php?page=news-archive-05-2000

Tuesday, May 16
Desslock's Editorial by Miroslav - 11:24 -
Desslock published a little article about sales reports. Here's what he says on Fallout Sales:

The sales statistics for a variety of other titles may surprise you. Fallout and Fallout 2, which are considered to be two of the best RPGs released in recent years, sold approximately 140,000 and 120,000 copies, respectively, in PC Data's tracked data. Very good sales, especially since the overall figures are likely double those amounts, but considerably below the sales volumes for true blockbuster titles.

Here's a sales chart which shows that Fallout sold more copies than "Planescape: Torment"!

Baldur's Gate (all formats) 500,000
BG expansion pack 156,000
Fallout 144,000
Fallout 2 123,000
Diablo 1,300,000
Revenant 37,000
Darkstone 75,000
Ultima IX: Ascension 73,000
Planescape: Torment 73,000

Desslock also addresses these figures here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg/3BPGF2GjXnM

>
> On Thu, 2 Nov 2000 11:32:13 -0800, "Miles Lippincott"
> <sar...@uswest.net> wrote:
>> >Try looking at some of Desslock's articles recently on RPG sales. BG1 went
> >over a million units well before D2 was released.
>
> OK, next question - where does Desslock get his numbers? Does he do
> the research himself, or is he just repeating what he read somewhere
> else? Your comment is without value.

I posted this information in an editorial last May, just prior to the
E3. I tried to be as comprehensive as possible -- I used the numbers
from PC Data for North America, and from sources such as the ELSU (UK)
and the GFK (Germany) for Europe, where available, as well as compared
those sale statistics with those from a local, "gaming specialty" store,
and from various sources that I considered reliable within companies
(which is a pretty high threshold).

The figures being thrown around here vastly understate the significance
of Fallout's sales. Just according to PC Data's stats, the game sold
around 150,000 units, and Fallout 2 sold around the same (slightly
less). And both games sold well in Europe as well -- a very basic rule
of thumb is to double the sales to get worldwide figures (for games
developed in North America). At the time, Fallout was one of the most
successful games ever for Interplay (passed only by Descent 1 & 2).

While the final word here is that Fallout was successful for Interplay, note that part about being passed by Descent 1&2 (not remembered by a lot of people these days I expect) and his earlier assertion that they sold "considerably below the sales volumes for true blockbuster titles".
Or simply note that they both sold around a tenth of what Diablo 1 did and both sold less than the expansion to BG1 according to the PC Data numbers.

 

[.Pixote.]

Back in 2000, these where the games sold.

Baldur's Gate (all formats) 500,000
BG expansion pack 156,000
Fallout 144,000
Fallout 2 123,000
Diablo 1,300,000
Revenant 37,000
Darkstone 75,000
Ultima IX: Ascension 73,000
Planescape: Torment 73,000

Of course, this does not count pirated, steam, and the new releases.

Source - this website news back in 2000

Sad to see such classics being under valued at their time of release. The game market was much smaller than nowadays, but still Planescape: Torment 73,000...

 

[Buxbaum666]

I remember Descent. It was loads of fun back in the day.