It appears the series shift and big promotional push for Mafia III has paid dividends for publisher 2K Games.

The company announced during an earnings report, Mafia III shipped 4.5 million copies to retailers in its first week. That number puts it ahead of other popular 2K properties like Borderlands, Bioshock, and NBA 2K to become the fastest selling title in company history. Mafia III gained much attention from the video game industry for its choice of black protagonist, period setting, and addressing racism in its storyline.

While Mafia III received solid, if not spectacular reviews upon release, there was clearly high interest among consumers for the game judging by the early sales numbers.

Source: Polygon

My Opinion:

While “shipped to retailers” isn’t quite the same as “sold to consumers”, those numbers are still fantastic. I think 2K did a great job in building up anticipation for Mafia III with various character and setting trailers. Hopefully it leads to more developers taking a chance in featuring different looking protagonists in their games going forward. It will be interesting to see if the game has long sales legs, considering the issues some had with its gameplay execution.

Darius Purse is a Senior Writer at MONG and if you want to talk Games, TV, or MMA feel free to follow him on Twitter.