Analysts Note Rise in Resident Evil Game Sales Thanks to New Movie and Discounts

Zach Cregger's new Resident Evil movie and Capcom's September sale have noticeably boosted sales and player counts for the series' games, especially on PS5. The data comes from analytics firm Alinea Analytics.

According to Alinea's head of market analysis Rhys Elliott, Resident Evil 2 Remake benefited the most, with its PS5 sales nearly doubling. However, the discount played the main role here: Capcom's sale started on September 10, eight days before the movie's premiere, and the game's price on the US PS Store dropped from $39.99 to $7.99. To measure the movie's impact specifically, the analysts calculated the results separately without the discount. The premiere boosted RE2 Remake sales on PS5 by 64% and Resident Evil 4 Remake by 54%. The results on PC are much more modest:

On Steam, the same movie effect is a much milder +11% to +14%

Player counts grew too. RE2 Remake's daily audience across all platforms rose by 48%, from about 78,000 to nearly 116,000 players. Resident Evil 3 Remake saw a 25% increase, Resident Evil 4 Remake 24%, and Resident Evil Requiem 20%.

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At the same time, the movie barely helped Requiem itself. According to Alinea's estimates, the game's daily revenue on PS5 actually fell by 4% during the premiere's opening weekend, from about $284,000 to $271,000. The game sold more copies but made less money, since only the discount drove its sales. Elliott believes the movie brought old fans back to the games rather than attracting new ones. One of the reasons is that the film doesn't feature any of the main protagonists from the games, so newcomers don't know which entry to start with.

Still, Requiem is doing great even without the movie. According to Alinea's estimates, the game's revenue has already surpassed $500 million, and no entry in the series has ever reached that mark so quickly:

Revenue-wise, it's outpacing every other game in the franchise and will certainly leapfrog the Resident Evil 4 remake's $600M+ when all is said and done

In total, 8.5 million people have played Requiem. PlayStation remains the game's main platform with a 48.1% share, while Steam trails just slightly behind at 43.4%. More than 4 million copies have been sold on PS5, 1.2 million of which are physical.

Cregger's film itself, which was released on September 18, became the most successful in the film franchise's history, grossing $108.3 million worldwide in its opening weekend. It's the best start in the 24-year history of Resident Evil movies. On top of that, it has become the highest-rated video game adaptation on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.