Brick vs Byte usually concerns the top ten best-selling games on Steam vs the top ten best-selling games at UK retail over the last week, but as both charts are barely changed from last week and frankly that’s no fun whatsoever to read about, we instead contacted our Future Industry Analyst Dr Ian “Ian” McGuess to provide an accurate look at what he’d expect said charts to look like thirty years hence. Here’s what his spreadsheets came up with.



Steam:



1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Battlefield: FIFA: Theme Park 4

Dr Ian notes: by this point, Activision will have bought out EA, but their only use of its properties was as a snarky way to avoid an increasingly ludicrous number appearing at the end of its Call of Duty games’ names. The COD series has continued to be rebooted every few years, with a new subtitle added every time. Fans generally agree it’s all been downhill since Call of Duty: Black Ops: Medal of Honor: Dungeon Keeper 3, however.

2. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Dr Ian notes: with Bethesda finally releasing the first patch for the classic roleplaying game, a mere 30 years after release, it’s shot back into the charts. They still haven’t added a menu option for self-shadowing, however.

3. Anno 2011

Dr Ian notes: Pundits praise the newest anno for its accurate representation of the worldwide financial collapse on November 22, 2011.

4. Half-Life 3

Dr Ian notes: hahahahahahahahahaahahhaaaaaargh.

5. Football Manager 2042

Dr Ian notes: in 2038, Rock, Paper, Shotgun finally stopped making the ‘foot-to-ball’ gag.

6. Uncharted 19: Press A Button

Dr Ian notes: with the collapse of the console industry in 2021, most of those platforms’ major brands came to PC. It was around about Uncharted 14 that the developers admitted their players just wanted to watch explosions while a man said pithy things.

7. System Shock 3

Dr Ian notes: rights to Shock passed back to Irrational in 2040, when Ken Levine and Bobby Kotick had a fist fight over ownership of it on top of Ben Nevis. Levine won, but all that’s left of him is a single staring eye, now embedded in a golden throne.

8. Angry Birds 3: It’s Christmas Time Again, Again

9. Angry Birds 3: Instant 100% Completion DLC

10. Angry Birds 3: Instant 101% Completion DLC