Remember all those "video games are recession-resistant" stories a year ago? The truth was always that, at least in the US, game sales depend largely on the console cycle and are thus falling with lower console sales.
I think there's a simpler explanation; video game prices haven't dropped in over 6 months. Fable II was released almost a year ago now, it's still the exact same price. I remember quite clearly, because I bought my Elite 360 almost a year ago and I remember looking at it on the shelf in bestbuy for 59.99 it's still 59.99 in bestbuy. I got Fallout 3 in the 1Q and it cost 69.99 (I griped because it went up in price from 59.99) and it's still 69.99.
This is from my experience in the games industry: big games prop up the big sales figures. The majority (over 70% IIRC) of sales are made after a game drops below half of its original sale price. Add the two together for long enough and you get this sort of major sales slide.
There's an alternate explanation I'd like to add: there simply haven't been many good games in 2009.
Avid gamers, think back to 2008 and 2007... I spent way too much time in front of my TV back then, because there were quality titles coming out.
In 2009 I did not buy a single game until Batman: Arkham Asylum this month. This is the first time in ever that I can remember not buying any games for the first 8 months of the year.
And the worst part is, this will get worse. Many of the most anticipated games of the holiday season have gotten pushed into Q1 2010. Q4 2009 is going to go down in history as a very, very painful quarter for game publishers.
That's very true, but I believe sales would have been much better this year if last years games weren't still priced the same as the new games of this year.
I have a serious problem when buying games, because I worked as a reviewer so I'm used to recommending 'buy this one now, buy this one later, and just don't even think about it' and I happen to agree. There hasn't been a single game that I had to buy this year. EVE Online has been winning my interest with the new expansion, and I usually detest MMO's. The games always held my attention, but I've never been able to justify the monthly payments, yet the lack of decent games this year and the fact that their expansions add a lot to the game without costing you more (I'd never play WoW because they charge you multiple times, for buying the original game, the expansions and monthly, and it never felt fun to play).
I've heard no mention of MMO sales, but I've admittedly not paid attention to that sector. So I would be interested to see if there has been a boom or bust. Have people been cancelling subscriptions or have people switched from buying a new game every month at $70 to a low monthly fee? I may have to look it up
Zzzzzzzzz It's August the sleepiest month of the year for video games, which has been true since the beginning of time.
Look to see a big bump in sales in Sept when all the fall games start to come out and when the new PS3 price drop has effect.
As well the sales could still be year over year worse than last Sept and it wouldn't be the end of the world. The games industry traditionally follows a console cycle (though that will likely be broken up this time around with the launch of Natal and Sony's Waggle next year) and so once you're past the peak some years after a launch, your sales will necessarily decline until the next console launch.
The NPD data shows that this August is down 16% from last August - so it's not just summer sleepyness.
I think NPD only tracks retail sales though, so any money diverted to downloadable content, Steam, or iPhone games would seem to "disappear" from their charts.
I'm sure game sales are affected by the recession, but the console industry follows a cycle, going up after the launch of a new set of consoles, peaking, and then dropping down until the hype cycle begins for the next console launch.
Largely everything seems to be following the same set plan.
Next year might be an upset year of this traditional cycle though, since Microsoft and Sony are releasing hardware upgrades in the form of their motion controllers. Microsoft has been quoted as saying that the launch of their Natal upgrade would be akin to a console launch event.
It's not a 16% droping trend, or the recession. There tend to be good years and bad years for game releases. If you look at the NPD stats for more than one year in the past you can see that. Last year was amazingly good - loads of well-received big hitters. This year's a slow year and is consistent with sales from other off years.
Many of the big titles that were due this year have been put back to a 2010 release. This Christmas we have only have three big-hitters: Assassin's Creed 2, Uncharted 2 and Modern Warfare 2. Good for publishers of those three I guess. We also have the recent releases of the PS3 Slim and Rock Band: The Beatles.
Next year we get all the games that were delayed this year (Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction etc.) on top of a number of good releases that were originally due. I predict that 2010 will be an on year.
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[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 29.9 ms ] threadThis is from my experience in the games industry: big games prop up the big sales figures. The majority (over 70% IIRC) of sales are made after a game drops below half of its original sale price. Add the two together for long enough and you get this sort of major sales slide.
Avid gamers, think back to 2008 and 2007... I spent way too much time in front of my TV back then, because there were quality titles coming out.
In 2009 I did not buy a single game until Batman: Arkham Asylum this month. This is the first time in ever that I can remember not buying any games for the first 8 months of the year.
And the worst part is, this will get worse. Many of the most anticipated games of the holiday season have gotten pushed into Q1 2010. Q4 2009 is going to go down in history as a very, very painful quarter for game publishers.
I have a serious problem when buying games, because I worked as a reviewer so I'm used to recommending 'buy this one now, buy this one later, and just don't even think about it' and I happen to agree. There hasn't been a single game that I had to buy this year. EVE Online has been winning my interest with the new expansion, and I usually detest MMO's. The games always held my attention, but I've never been able to justify the monthly payments, yet the lack of decent games this year and the fact that their expansions add a lot to the game without costing you more (I'd never play WoW because they charge you multiple times, for buying the original game, the expansions and monthly, and it never felt fun to play).
I've heard no mention of MMO sales, but I've admittedly not paid attention to that sector. So I would be interested to see if there has been a boom or bust. Have people been cancelling subscriptions or have people switched from buying a new game every month at $70 to a low monthly fee? I may have to look it up
Look to see a big bump in sales in Sept when all the fall games start to come out and when the new PS3 price drop has effect.
As well the sales could still be year over year worse than last Sept and it wouldn't be the end of the world. The games industry traditionally follows a console cycle (though that will likely be broken up this time around with the launch of Natal and Sony's Waggle next year) and so once you're past the peak some years after a launch, your sales will necessarily decline until the next console launch.
I think NPD only tracks retail sales though, so any money diverted to downloadable content, Steam, or iPhone games would seem to "disappear" from their charts.
Largely everything seems to be following the same set plan.
Next year might be an upset year of this traditional cycle though, since Microsoft and Sony are releasing hardware upgrades in the form of their motion controllers. Microsoft has been quoted as saying that the launch of their Natal upgrade would be akin to a console launch event.
Many of the big titles that were due this year have been put back to a 2010 release. This Christmas we have only have three big-hitters: Assassin's Creed 2, Uncharted 2 and Modern Warfare 2. Good for publishers of those three I guess. We also have the recent releases of the PS3 Slim and Rock Band: The Beatles.
Next year we get all the games that were delayed this year (Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction etc.) on top of a number of good releases that were originally due. I predict that 2010 will be an on year.