The impossible has happened. For the first time in modern gaming history, a niche city-builder has dethroned the king of shooters during its launch week. 👑📉 Anno 117: Pax Romana has officially outsold Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 on the Steam weekly revenue charts, securing the #2 spot while the FPS juggernaut trails behind at #3 or #4.

This episode analyzes the numbers behind this historic upset. We look at how Anno 117 became the "fastest-selling game in franchise history," achieving a concurrent player peak double that of Anno 1800. Meanwhile, Black Ops 7 struggled with a launch peak of under 100k players on Steam, a massive drop compared to last year's Black Ops 6.

Is this a sign of "Shooter Fatigue"? 💤 We discuss whether players are finally tired of the annual $70 FPS grind and are migrating to deep, high-value strategy experiences. We also cover the critical reception gap: Anno 117 sits at a strong 85 Metacritic score despite review-bombing over AI art, while CoD faces yet another year of mixed user reviews.

Finally, we ask if this trend will hold. With Anno players logging an average of 3.7 hours per day, is the "slow burn" of empire building officially more addictive than the "fast twitch" of TDM? ⏳⚔️