Over the years, Activision’s Call of Duty franchise has been quite the best seller on the game market, with games such as Call of Duty: Ghosts and Call of Duty: Black Ops II clearing millions of copies sold with ease. That said, the best-selling game series has declined in sales for the last three years, and this trend continues with the latest release, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

Released on November 4h to a great deal of critical acclaim, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has reportedly dropped down 27 percent in sales based on year-over-year numbers with last year’s release, Call of Duty: Ghosts.

Michael Olson, an analyst for Piper Jaffray, explained to GamesIndustry International the impact of these sales numbers. “This is disappointing data following first week Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare sales showing a year-over-year increase,” he said. “NPD data does not include digital copies or international sales, which, if included, would lessen the year-over-year decline, but we believe this data suggests potential for Q4 revenue upside is now very low.”

This is the third straight year that the Call of Duty franchise has shown a decline, as last year’s Call of Duty: Ghosts dropped 19 percent compared to the 2012 release of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, which, in itself, showed a 17 percent decline over 2011’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

That’s a stark comparison when looked at directly; when you add it all up Advanced Warfare‘s first-month U.S. retail sales were less than half of what Modern Warfare 3 did back in 2011.

But the news isn’t entirely negative. Despite the decline, Activision was still quite pleased with the sales of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, explaining that sales of the title were still enough during the month of November to earmark it as the best-selling U.S. retail title of the year to date – even that over the company’s prior release of Destiny a couple of months beforehand.

To be fair, Activision did shift the series back to the good side with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare following last year’s Call of Duty: Ghosts, including a futuristic storyline, new gameplay perks and the star power of House of Cards‘ Kevin Spacey as the main character.