Since its launch in February, Helldivers 2 has become one of the surprise hits of 2024, topping the Steam charts and reportedly selling around 3 million copies. In his article On X/Twitter, Circana executive Matt Piscatella noted that the game’s sales continued to rise for a third week. He described the experience as an “inverted latency curve,” technical jargon for a game’s sales increasing after its release rather than falling.
Typically, sales of a new release peak in the first week and gradually decline over time. But with a reverse decay curve, this trend is reversed. This rarely happens, especially in large games.
Piscatella’s company is responsible for producing monthly sales charts that provide an overview of the gaming industry. These graphs are compiled using physical store sales data and information provided by publishers who have agreed to share their data. While Piscatella’s data is not a comprehensive indicator of a game’s success, it does provide valuable insight into the state of the gaming industry on a monthly basis.
