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Video game sales tank. Let's discuss.
brostyn
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 3,092
Sales were worse than even 2009, when we were dead center in the eye of the shit storm.
Is this something so simple as people not having disposable income, or something more?
Personally, I quit buying games long ago. I buy about one or two a year. I'm always disappointed. I haven't played a game I liked since Dawn of War. I try all the new hot RPGs and RTSs. They are just old rehashes of games I've already played. Fallout 3 and Oblivion were far too much like Morrowind, which I played the crap out of. NWN2 was a UI mess. Dragon Age was too tedious. DoW2 was DoW. I fell out of love with Final Fantasy long ago when it became all emo. Are gamers finally get fed up with all the copy and paste gameplay? I hope so. However, more than likely, its just money problems.
What are your thoughts?
Comments
I would imagine that the millions of people that lost their jobs and will come to find that the jobs they lost no longer exist anymore, have shifted priorities from buying fun things like games... to buying things they need to survive. I mean.. I was laid off for a long time but got lucky to get another job. Buying video games never even crossed my mind during that period. I was more concerned with my house, car, food.... that type of stuff.
That... or the games just suck and no one wants to buy em.
Wouldn't explain why Pizza Hut, Papa John's, McD, etc, are posting record sales. Even casual dining is making a comeback. Maybe people think that is more important, though.
Nothing good to play right now and because of how the economy is people are rushing to the store to buy games or even downloading them. Look at all the mmo games we have now and tell me what mmo is really doing well besides WoW ? None. I think people are so addictied to mmos that they will play anything just for the sake of them saying they are playing a mmo.
Even console gaming is taking a hit in sales.
http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/704679/Splinter-Cell-Conviction-Leads-April-Sales-But-Video-Games-Arent-Doing-Very-Well.html
I honestly think that right now alot of good games are in developement and well, we just have to wait til 2011 for better games or atleast the end of 2010. Games like Fallout: New Vegas, Brink and Starcraft 2 will surely boost gaming sales in general for 2010.
Could easily be a combination of both. Game producers see a dip in profits and produce crappy C&P games in place of big-budget projects as a direct result of economical problems. Seems likely enough to me. In fact, entertainment on all fronts seems to have suffered over the last few years.
Regardless, they can't spend more on something than they stand to make in return, so what we get is what we get for the time being, and I couldn't agree more that the vast majority of it sucks. Hopefully though, as the economy turns around and things get back on track, so will gaming. I'm pretty sure they're both directly related.
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
George Bernard Shaw
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde
Well, pizza is food.. granted its not necessary, but I dont really believe it falls in the same priority category as games. Costs for things like dining out seem more viable somehow... as if you know you arent buying a "toy" with your money. Even though dining out or ordering out seems to be a reckless use of money in a hard financial time, you can feed your kids and yourself. A game can't provide that justification.
Though I would say those are cheaper restaurants. Probably cheaper to take the family out to a cheap resaurant for entertainment and "a night out" than taking a family to the movies.
My thought is that "yes" people didn't have disposable income and so cut back in such things like video games.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Many of the 'sales' figures do not include direct downloads. Accurate estimates of actual sales are therefore a bit messed up. What I see with my friends is that fewer people are just going out and getting any new thing available. With game comanies no longer having consistent quality releases, I know I rarely buy all games from one company like I used to. Word of mouth advertising works better around here now. Migration to online also affects such things.
Last time I looked the video gaming industry was rivalling Hollywood for cash coming in.
If you are out of work, a good game can be just the thing in between those tedious interviews.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
its the dark times , kinda like the housing market , mmos started getting greedy with there little schemes , like aoc release and aion release. people are scared of games now.
i think people are paying more attention to reviews and they are done buyimg those single player 5 hours and im done. i just sold my ps3 because it was a glorified dvd player.
same thing with mmo's im not subing Sheet untill hundreds of other people say omg this game is awesome.
For instance , Star trek , if a billion people said man this game is the bomb , i would be a star trek playing mmo fool atm.
Copycat games, poor or sad-sad-sad economy (depending on the numbers you follow), and piracy.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
^ this. For instance, the MW2 mapathy pack came out that month, sold millions, but is not represented on the NPD.
I dont think that the link to an economic down-turn, a decrease in gaming purchases but increase in fastfood is logical. I'd argue that cheap fast food consumption is more prevalent in times of economic downturn.
Yes...just wanted to add that I agree with this. In addition, its been widely watched and reported for some time. I recall beginning to follow the trend for a while. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Digital-Downloads-Will-Increase-By-Leaps-and-Bounds-Says-Analyst-114118.shtml
Agreed.
It's the same as the music industry - CD shops are closing down, iTunes is booming. Most of these stats deal with OTC sales only and are therefore hugely inaccurate.
With the economy more people are saving cash on their game hobbies by buying Used games through gamestop or even second hand through Ebay also direct download is often cheaper and those dont get counted.
I know I purchased exactly 24 titles since August 09. Only 5 of those were new titles.
My other friends wont buy a game until its dropped to 39.99 atleast.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
If a higher percentage of games came out the gate kicking ass and taking names like they use to, we wouldn't be so cautious with our disposable income. The issue now is we have all/or at least most been screwed on a 60$ game now. I know a huge majority of us have rushed out bought a game for a console or PC format at a 50$ price tag or more. Gotten home and felt duped. They feel cheap un-polished and rushed. So I think we as gamers are getting smarter with what we choose to Buy which may in the long run lead company's back to the path of making good games again.
We can only hope for that anyway. With G4-TV reviewing games, magazines reviewing games this very website for a good example. We have a plethora of things to consider before buying a product. Less impulse buying is a good thing both for us as the consumers and it will only help the company's learn releasing bad games won't make them as much money over the long haul. Short term gains are nothing anymore.
I won't go out as an adult and buy a game just because I saw an Ad on TV. I'll wait read the tech reviews, look on sites like this for fellow gamers I've seen posting for years and trust for gaming opinions. I'll see if people are bitching about the game and if the gripes are reasonable. Guild Wars 2 for example hey it looks great tons of people are worshiping it as the next Killer mmorpg. I won't buy it at release I'll wait 3 months ish see if people are playing it for very long, if its got lasting fun and enjoyment potential. The game might be free monthly but if you get sucked in you WILL probably buy multiple expansions.
If the newer generation Was the same way which I honestly think they are catching on, we won't have to wait much longer for company's/developers/publishers to really understand the market in which they make money.
Just my 2 cents~
A man or "gamer" should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
^This^
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What no one is talking about is how DLC, add-ons, and other content left out of the boxed version of the game has raised profits by like 547%... I mean why sell a game for 60 bucks when you can sell half a game for 60 bucks and sell the rest for modest fees via DLC, adventure packs and so on.
But no seriously. People are hurting for cash. Pretty logical that as people have been jobless for longer periods of time they've gotten more serious about cutting back on extras.
I think its 3 main reasons:
Games are way too overpriced. The state of the economy isn't helping either. I'm not paying $100 dollars (AUS) for a new release anymore until its been out a couple of months and I've read many reviews. I simply cannot afford it. So I now usually buy 1 game at the most a year, if even. Games are just getting too samey now too. I'm growing tired of the same formulas and I ain't rebuying the same stuff at the prices games are. And there's of course the pirating.
I'm fairly more cautious with my gamining purchases. After feeling the burn after buying Champions, I decided that I needed to wait until after a game is released before buying. No more pre-orders for me. Except, of course, for my regular staples like the Sims and any city builder. Those are pre-order necessities.
People are busy. It's easy to spend an hour or two watching TV than get into a game.
I personally won't buy new games until I have read some reviews and had personal friends tell me they liked it. I have paid 60 bucks to find the game lasted 5 hours or so. Screw that. If they want to release games with almost no single player, they can expect people such as myself to not buy them. I could care less about multiplayer, on most games I'm buying it to kill time and not deal with stupid people. If I want to play online I have MMOs and a bevy of FPS games already.
Which brings me to my next point, a lot of games are basically the same thing over and over. Why buy new Call of Duty games when you could buy one for 10 bucks used and have the same game? If they want people to buy games they need to give us reasons to. I can find cheap older games that I missed on a download service like Steam or Direct2drive and have more fun than a majority of the new 60 dollar games. I'm sure piracy also plays a part but I think people use piracy as a way to see if the game has anything worth paying for or they just can't afford it anyway. Regardless you won't see the money. All of us have been burned so many times we are afraid to commit the money to find that we should have bought Game A instead of Over-hyped Game B.
the economy, lack of innovative game releases and fishing on WoW for hat, boots, and rod probably contributed to lower sales
Bring back Vanilla WoW pvp
Most games now days are all FLASH no SUBSTANCE. Nuff' said.
If the games were fun then they could easily "get into" them.
I don't know what it was like anywhere else during the last year, but in Canada it was reported here that eating out, hobby stores, theatre sales and especially reported that the gaming industry had a gigantic record boost in sales/revenue because even though significant job losses and the economy going down the crapper, people here were actually spending more because there was just nothing else to do.