Helldivers 2 could be the next Guitar Hero with sales not slowing, breaking industry trends

The success of Helldivers 2 doesn't appear to be slowing down whatsoever, racking up over 3 million sales, breaking records on concurrent player numbers on Steam... and now enjoying its third week in a row of continued sales.

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In a new post on X, Circana executive director Mat Piscatella praises Helldivers 2 as sales have continued to increase in its third week since release. He said that Helldivers 2 is going through an "honest-to-goodness inverse decay curve so far," adding that he feels like Steve Irwin sighting a "rare bird or something, rare and amazing, in an Australian accent even."

He continued: "Normally, sales are biggest for a new release during week 1, and fall over time. With an 'inverse decay curve' the trend reverses. It's rare, particularly for bigger games. Just saying 'growth' doesn't explain the nature - as 'growth' could be temporary, ie from discounting. Using the term "inverse decay curve" denotes that baseline sales are improving, unrelated to short-term things that can impact incremental demand. I mean, or just keep saying it's pretentious or obnoxious that's cool too. Live your dream.."

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IGN reports from a follow-up email with Piscatella, that he compared Arrowhead's gigantic success to Guitar Hero. He said that Guitar Hero first launched on the PlayStation 2, and "sold poorly" but continued to grow its widespread word-of-mouth success. Piscatella told IGN: "Now, I'm not saying Helldivers 2 is going to become the next Guitar Hero, just saying that there's similar behavior happening in the sales curve."

He added: "This won't last forever. Eventually it'll hit a peak and then sales will start decaying as it moves further into its lifecycle. Which is also normal and expected. But, for now at least, it's a very exciting title to watch, particularly as we are seeing some other games really struggle commercially. But what's happening in the market at large is its own big whole mess of a topic."

He's not wrong... Helldivers 2 is a complete smash hit. It has the same game-changing force behind it that Apex Legends, PUBG, and Fortnite had at their launch. Games like PUBG were simple, but changed the entire gaming landscape with battle royale born from the game, and now game developers will want to tap into the magic that Arrowhead has delivered to gamers -- at just $40, I might add -- with Helldivers 2.