Gearbox Software’s Borderlands has evidently become one of the biggest original IPs of the year, selling two million copies worldwide since its October release.
If you look at the list of the bestselling titles this year, you’ll find a lot of games with numbers on the end: Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil 5, Assassin’s Creed II, Left 4 Dead 2 and the massive behemoth that was Modern Warfare 2. Even one of the rare bestsellers that wasn’t a sequel to an existing game – Batman: Arkham Asylum – was part of a beloved superhero franchise. So what, do you have to have an existing franchise to make it in this harsh world of gaming?
Not if you’re Borderlands, apparently. According to this Take-Two Q4 fiscal summary, Borderlands has done quite well for itself, selling two million copies worldwide since late October and racking up a pair of DLC expansions, The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned and Mad Moxxi’s Underground Riot. Gearbox’s offbeat shoot-and-loot FPS set on the harsh desert world of Pandora is doing pretty well for itself, which is nice, since it’s a great game.
This, however, is one of the few bright spots in Take-Two’s Q4 report, seeing as how the publisher lost $137.9 million total in fiscal 2009. Guess not every year can have Grand Theft Auto IV, huh.