By now, you already know you should play Saints Row: The Third, so I won't say it again, even though I just did.

Saints Row: The Third was one of Giant Bomb’s most beloved games from 2011, and a press release from THQ today discussing the company’s movement away from games aimed at kids also notes that Volition’s totally nuts sequel has shipped 3.8 million copies worldwide. The company expects to ship between five and six million copies.

That’s shipped, not sold, which means retailers have purchased 3.8 million copies of the game, not consumers.

Now, if only Volition would roll out some new story-based downloadable content. Jeff’s response to Genkibowl VII was...not so good.

By now, you already know you should play Saints Row: The Third, so I won't say it again, even though I just did.

Saints Row: The Third was one of Giant Bomb’s most beloved games from 2011, and a press release from THQ today discussing the company’s movement away from games aimed at kids also notes that Volition’s totally nuts sequel has shipped 3.8 million copies worldwide. The company expects to ship between five and six million copies.

That’s shipped, not sold, which means retailers have purchased 3.8 million copies of the game, not consumers.

Now, if only Volition would roll out some new story-based downloadable content. Jeff’s response to Genkibowl VII was...not so good.

I was able to read the whole story and then comment. This quest is dumb.

@HaltIamReptar said:

I was able to read the whole story and then comment. This quest is dumb.

Fucking agree.

Love this game, bought it on 360 AND PC

Yup, totally is.

Wow, impressive numbers.

Well deserved!

Saints Row: The Fourth should meld together with Red Faction even more. Give the Saint Row the destruction physics of Guerrilla.

Glad to see quality selling. Upsetting though that THQ found it okay to lay off part of the SR:3 team at Volition while the idiots responsible for the last Red Faction game still remain.

You guys finally pushed me into buying this game with your game of the year podcast. I never found the stuff in SR2 or SR1 to be all that fun or funny, but this one is just about perfect. Thanks guys! Glad it's doing well for THQ and Volition.

@HaltIamReptar said:

I was able to read the whole story and then comment. This quest is dumb.

Yeah, that's how it happened for me too. I posted like 10 minutes after the article went up.

Great! Not how about they get working on Saints Row: The Fourth?

I don't understand the news here.

@HaltIamReptar:

Yup

Get us some Aerosmith DLC for Saints Row: The Third and we'll be fine.

@yami4ct said:

You guys finally pushed me into buying this game with your game of the year podcast. I never found the stuff in SR2 or SR1 to be all that fun or funny, but this one is just about perfect. Thanks guys! Glad it's doing well for THQ and Volition.

Same here, didn't care for SR 1 or 2 all that much but I finally caved and gave SR 3 a chance based on the overwhelmingly positive support for the game. Great decision, easily one of my favorite games from 2011.

That's still not enough people who have played Saint's Row: The Third.

@wravey said:

I don't understand the news here.

the news is that those are a lot of copies considering the competition it had (Assassin's, Skyrim, Modern Warfare, Zelda, Uncharted, etc) and Saints Row 2 took two years to sell that many copies. it would be cool to know how many of those were actually sold but it's still a lot!

it's interesting because of THQ's overall financial situation and how their push for high quality core-gaming experiences is turning out.

Those are some pretty damn impressive figures. Even though it's only the shipped figure, I imagine the vast majority of that must have been sold, so that's brilliant.

We are sold out at my store on both systems but PC ... it's on my favorites section and I will continue to talk it up with customers that come in... It is so much fun and worth the 40 bucks it is right now.

I have a bad feeling about Saints Row 4, hopefully THQ don't see this as a cashcow and milk out everything that made it special.

When it drops under $40 i'll bite.

I bought 2 million copies for myself.

What I actually mean is I bought 1 copy and pretended to buy the rest in my mind. Sorry for misleading you.

@wravey said:

I don't understand the news here.

Me neither. Everybody and their grandmother could have gotten those numbers, and without a press release. This is some Brad Nicholson news right here. Really unexcited about that.

Honestly this makes me so happy. Great for THQ, great for Volition, great for Saints Row.
Good games selling is always welcome news.

But shipped doesn't mean sold, so this isn't really a news story. Yes, while shipments imply high demand, they do not assure it.

Shame, Patrick.

@MichaelEM3 said:

Well deserved!

Proud owner.

I would have expected maybe half that at best. Very impressive! I'm sure Giantbomb helped that along a bit, I wouldn't have shown any interest otherwise.

I'm glad it did well this game deserves more recognition just don't make it an annual thing or they'll just fuck things up.

SR3 was unbelievably great fun.

Not enough! NEEDS MORE SALES! Such an amazing game.

Good news for them now they need to go ahead and make a return to the Freespace universe.

Thought the first two were ok. SR3 was just the best pure GAME I played all last year. It was just fun, didnt fight me like Dark Souls and just ate away the hours like Skyrim. It reminded me of why I love video games to begin with, it just made me smile!

I'm still annoyed that they scaled down the character customization options from 2 and made the cutscenes feel disjointed. I hope that it's not a sign of how this series is going, but SR3 was still fun as hell and I want a 4th. Glad it's selling well.

Strap it on 

great game

Way to go retailers!

First!

edit:Damn it I was too late.

This was the tightest and best overall experience that I had with a $60 retail game last year. From the moment that I started, every time that I walked away from the game to do useful, productive things I just wanted to be playing it. At the end I felt like I wanted more, but not that anything was missing. I really hope they nail the fourth game this well.

Later on for a beloved steam sale.

Maybe.

Listening to you talk about it so much, made me buy it. Took it to my friends ... made him buy it. I had it on console, then I bought it again for PC because it's waaaay better.

On the whole THQ thing, I just want to see more RTS goodness come out of Relic. I would love a Company of Heroes style modern day RTS developed by Relic, even though the whole modern theme has been milked dry.

This is good news, especially considering the rumors about THQ having financial trouble. I enjoy Volition's games, and have high hopes for the game that they are developing with Guilermo Del Toro, (no idea how to spell his name)

but he was on a 2 part interview with Ken Levine on the "Irrational interviews" podcast. Anyone who hasn't heard it I highly recommend the entire irrational series. Del Toro was talking up Volition and how they are a good fit for his game. I've been concerned that they might cancel development since the rumors have started..

http://irrationalgames.com/insider/irrational-interviews-9-guillermo-del-toro-part-1/

http://irrationalgames.com/insider/irrational-interviews-9-guillermo-del-toro-part-2/

You know, I always wonder about this. As far as the publisher is concerned, what difference does it make if the copies are sold or just shipped? They already got their money, so who cares? Some people really go out of their way for some reason to downplay a milestone in sales if the numbers represent copies shipped and not copies sold.

Nice to hear. Good games deserve good sales.

Is it just me who found the game entirely unsatisfying and floaty? I just couldn't get into any part of it.

Its the game I was hoping GTA4 was going to be, maybe could have a bit more variety in the radio stations/talk radio but otherwise it exceeded my expectations. I like games which are fun to play, SR3 is mad fun.

@SlasherMan said:

You know, I always wonder about this. As far as the publisher is concerned, what difference does it make if the copies are sold or just shipped? They already got their money, so who cares? Some people really go out of their way for some reason to downplay a milestone in sales if the numbers represent copies shipped and not copies sold.

I'm sure that there is obligation on the publisher to reduce the price they charge the retailers if the game doesn't sell within a certain amount of time, otherwise it's really hard to explain why game prices drop so fast now when the retail margins are so low.

Most games that come out now drop in price from $60 on release to less than $20 within a year, when you consider that the store is only making $10-15 selling the game, they certainly aren't selling the game at a loss within 3-6 months of it coming out.

Good to see and I'm still looking forward to the next one.