Videogame Sales plummet

[Hellbent]

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/video-game-sales-make-surprise-plunge-in-april/1398993

Sales of video game software and hardware plummeted in April, shocking industry observers who were expecting the numbers to be slightly positive or, worst case, down just slightly. That could mean a rough Friday for video game stocks.

On the whole, sales were off 26 percent to $766 million, with software sales (the most closely followed of the numbers) plunging 22 percent to $398.5 million, according to NPD Group, which tracks video game sales. Because April 2009 had relatively light sales (and thus, an easy comparable) industry insiders and investors were hoping to at least tow the line.

It was the industry’s fourth worst year-over-year decline—and it puts overall sales 11 percent behind last year’s sluggish pace. [the rest can be found in the link]

[Scet]

Really don't care, infact I'm hoping for a market crash. Modern games have production levels almost on par with movies, but without any memorable qualities. Hundreds of millions spent and years of production on what amounts to an hour of game-play, because the grass had to be ultra realistic.

As long as people can make free PC games and mods, I'll be happy.

[Technician]

Yeah, I'm with Scet on this one.

[Doom Marine]

Crash? I hope Activision and EA comes tumbling down with that douchebag Kotick at the bottom of the wreckage.

[BouncyTEM]

Doom Marine said:

Crash? I hope Activision and EA comes tumbling down with that douchebag Kotick at the bottom of the wreckage.

What'd the other douchebags do to be so rudely and insultingly compared to the abomination that is Kotick? It's an insult to all of them to have Kotick tossed in their caliber when he deserves far lower.
:P
Seriously though, yeah, I pretty much agree.

[TheDarkArchon]

Doom Marine said:

Crash? I hope Activision and EA comes tumbling down with that douchebag Kotick at the bottom of the wreckage.

In Activisions case, not likely while both World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2 DLC packs are still around

[hobomaster22]

Interesting. I agree with Scet. I never really buy video games because for the most part. It just seems to be a bunch of rehashed crap. I like to buy a first person shooter every couple of years. Don't need to be a game every other week, and especially not waste money on a console. I don't think games come along that often that are actually worth playing through.

[Snakes]

My purchase of video games has declined steadily over the years... Haven't bought one yet this year, but odds are that'll change by the end of the month (Super Mario Galaxy 2). I just don't have the money for frequent purchases anymore, plus I've fallen out of gaming by a large degree.

Hell, my Wii is only really used for Netflix these days, and that's the only system I own from this generation.

[Ultraboy94]

for many of the game companies (EA, Activision), the sales plummet serves them right. Most new games i see are just the same thing with slight alterations (mainly of the first-person shooter kind), and it seems that people are finally wising up to that.

It probably dosent help that most games I buy now are preowned, but would you rather spend £20 on a new game that has some factory wrap you're gonna dump anyway, or £12 for that same game? Or that game isnt being made new anymore...

[GreyGhost]

The global financial crisis would be at least partially responsible for the drop, when money's tight discretionary spending on stuff like video games tend to decline. The prospect of a deepening recession in the Eurozone - brought on by Mediterranean Swine Fever - won't help either, so game publishers probably have a less-than-merry Christmas sale season to look forward to.

[Bastet Furry]

@OP:
No wonder when there is just ShinyShiny and no game left.

[hobomaster22]

Super Mario Galaxy 2 reminds me. My brother is big into console gaming and he's about 19 and has a Wii and XBox 360. The main reasons he doesn't buy guy games is because of the price, not necessarily quality. 60 usd for a new XBox 360 game?

There's some games he's wanted for the Wii namely Super Mario Galaxy but he complains because they never drop the price because it's popular. It's been out for almost 3 years, its still 50 (usd) dollars and you can preorder Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the same? And I can see his point, I don't remember this happening. My last console was a Playstation and the games were 40/50 and eventually dropped to 20/30 as 'Greatest Hits' or whatever.

[Enjay]

[publisher's response]It's all due to the game pirates. Ramp up the DRM!!!!!11111one[/publisher's response]

[caco_killer]

I sincerely doubt a game industry crash will happen at this point. The industry is just too big for such a thing now. The corporations will not let such a thing happen.

Enjay said:

[publisher's response]It's all due to the game pirates. Ramp up the DRM!!!!!11111one[/publisher's response]

They'll blame either piracy or used game sales.

[Maes]

caco_killer said:

They'll blame either piracy or used game sales.

Then again, bad games encourage piracy...which encourage more DRM...which encourage more piracy etc. etc.

Compare it with when the videogame industry was still young: videogames were a novelty, too exotic to consider copying/pirating around, and quite different from what we know them. It was the time of innovation, original ideas, and the "never seen before" effect.

Compare it with when they were part of a mainstream, mature industry, in the mid 90s: they were already starting to be seen as yet another media like music or movies for the first time, and multi-million $$$ productions weren't unknown. Less room for innovation, although there were quite a few, but e.g. game genres had consolidated and only the technology behind them improved. Some games created franchises with a time-extended revenue generation.

Compare what we have today: it's given for granted that games will be multi-million $$$ productions (else they're "indie" games), it's given for granted that they MUST be cross-platform on the most commercial consoles and PC, PC magazine reviews are MERCILESS when it comes to GFX and yet their time-to-market and payback time are shorter than ever. Innovation and attempting to build franchises is too risky financially, so their tactic is attempting to secure as much early sales as possible with hard-to-crack DRMs, planned obsolescense, quick money licensing schemes, used market penny-scrounging etc.

Creating franchises you say? HELLO!!!! WoW was released 5 years ago and had a big name like "WARCRAFT" behind it, can you name any other well-known major, successful franchises that came after that? That's right, NONE motherfuckers! A few others like Battlefield XXXX and CoD are still around, but harder and harder to keep afloat.

The only sure bets are footies and sports games, for which millions of Joe consumers are willing to pay big $$$$$$$ every year.

Anyway, probably the end of videogames as part of a big industry has come, and if companies like EA need to scrounge for pennies by using fucked up licensing schemes and DRM, then gains must really be marginal. Probably sometime soon they'll hang the gloves and turn to casual gaming/facebook apps or purely console gaming for soccer moms and joe consumers.

[Reisal]

I'm also with Scet, there's too much modern crap that is making developers think more on graphics than gameplay most of the time.

I'll stick with the good old games for now.

@Maes: Mario is another big franchise, same with Zelda that hold similar weight to Warcraft does.

[Abyssalstudios1]

All of this makes me hope Project Vega becomes a success.

[Sharessa]

Doom Marine said:

Crash? I hope Activision and EA comes tumbling down with that douchebag Kotick at the bottom of the wreckage.

That would be nice, but I'll stick with my previous prediction that Kotick will jump ship as soon as the company starts going down. He'll take his money and run, then show up a few years later as the head of something else. Those CEOs are sly cunts with no regard for anyone else. Actually, that's just an insult to cunts.

caco_killer said:

I sincerely doubt a game industry crash will happen at this point. The industry is just too big for such a thing now. The corporations will not let such a thing happen.

I sincerely doubt an auto industry crash will happen at this point. The industry is just too big for such a thing now. The corporations will not let such a thing happen.

I sincerely doubt a bank crash will happen at this point. The banks just too big for such a thing now. The government will not let such a thing happen.

[RestlessRodent]

The VGI is a huge lump of junk now. It's not how it was then, everyone just wants cash. Most new games suck and aren't replayable because they don't want it to be replayable so you buy a new game.

[Mr. Freeze]

We could just light the buildings on fire.

[Abyssalstudios1]

Fine. My choice of career is settled.

[Kaiser]

Abyssalstudios1 said:

Fine. My choice of career is settled.

Good choice

[lupinx-Kassman]

Yeah I agree that on the whole, the game industry has become quite stale over the years. I guess that is to be expected though when games are no longer ordeals that can be accomplished with only a handful of programmers and artists.

I won't say that every game that comes out now is crap though. You just need to know where to look. It might not be as easy to find a good game these days, but you still can if you do some digging.

[bytor]

Unless marketing has taken a total dump...

GreyGhost said:

The global financial crisis would be at least partially responsible for the drop, when money's tight discretionary spending on stuff like video games tend to decline. The prospect of a deepening recession in the Eurozone - brought on by Mediterranean Swine Fever - won't help either, so game publishers probably have a less-than-merry Christmas sale season to look forward to.

I only wish the extreme drop were due to more fathers taking their sons out to play ball or build go-carts. Perhaps we'll see more of that along with the failing global economy?

[SYS]

Can we have one these threads without the whole circular logic turning shit wheel of "DRM is evil" VS "All the games fucking suck which is really why no one is buying this shit in the first place."???

[Csonicgo]

Nintendo will be the only ones to make it out alive

[GreyGhost]

Abyssalstudios1 said:

Fine. My choice of career is settled.

When did arson become a career option?

POTGIESSER said:

Can we have one these threads without the whole circular logic turning shit wheel of "DRM is evil" VS "All the games fucking suck which is really why no one is buying this shit in the first place."???

No problem - PIRACY IS KILLING THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY!!!

[Patrick]

its because Valve and ID havent put out anything recently.

[Technician]

id? id who?

[40oz]

I think if the Game Industry concentrated more so on making video games with very simple solid concepts but beautiful visuals an did not always cost $50+ to play they'd be more successful. Contra: Shattered Soldier for example is a pretty up-to-date game that really stuck to its roots. Needless to say I certainly got my money's worth.

I feel like many of the new games I play try too hard to 'force' good gameplay upon you, unlike simple games like Doom (Especially after playing on nightmare mode) where good gameplay comes naturally.