video games sales down.

[Sanguinedragon]

I can't really say this surprises me.

http://www.ingame.msnbc.msn.com/technology/ingame/us-retail-sales-video-games-fell-7th-month-879359#

Edit: LOL apparently I failed to make more of a statement.
I meant that I wasn't surprised cause I have been gaming since pong and this year I, personally, just felt that the releases just seemed "meh". Add in the whole mass effect controversy, the deluge of sequels, and the overall malaise of the economy, these figures just didn't surprise me.
I had no idea you would think it meant the world was ending XD

 

[FalloutJack]

I can't really say this surprises me.

http://www.ingame.msnbc.msn.com/technology/ingame/us-retail-sales-video-games-fell-7th-month-879359#

More content please. Any news report can claim the gaming apocalypse has come, but that hardly means it will happen. Not anymore than the real one. Do you have a point to make?

 

[Hal10k]

Makes sense. Releases have been a bit thin since the holiday season.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Makes sense. Releases have been a bit thin since the holiday season.

Yeah, don't sales and releases both fall /way/ off every Summer? It seems like I remember a lot of threads in the past about getting through the dry months of the Summer. It's never been a problem for me because I've always bought a lot of used stuff and only very rarely bought new, recently released games, but I know I've seen people talking about it.

 

[Hal10k]

Makes sense. Releases have been a bit thin since the holiday season.

Yeah, don't sales and releases both fall /way/ off every Summer? It seems like I remember a lot of threads in the past about getting through the dry months of the Summer. It's never been a problem for me because I've always bought a lot of used stuff and only very rarely bought new, recently released games, but I know I've seen people talking about it.

Yeah, it happens pretty much every year. Sales skyrocket in the holiday season because little Timmy's grades were good enough for him to get an Xbox this Christmas. So publishers tend to stack releases around that time to take advantage of the vast herds of easily confused shoppers.

 

[DarkRyter]

I'd click the link, but then I realized I would be going to the escapist to get gaming news from sites that are not the escapist.

I decided against that.

 

[Vault101]

ummm....

the end is nigh?

 

[The Mighty Stove]

Aren't most countries currently in a recession?

-snip-

Wrong, you go to the Escapist to read up on the latest gaming "Controversy". Silly.

 

[FalloutJack]

Aren't most countries currently in a recession?

Indeed, they are.

[HEADING=3]And so, with very little discussion content from the OP, I would like to switch topics to recessions.[/HEADING]

Because I have been looking at these things where everybody owes everyone else in a massive cluster-flux worse than seven fishing rods tangled with each other, and I have to wonder...why can't we just roll shit back? Alot of the money owed is numbers only, data not hard currency. Is there no way to develop a program to list all the debts and financial snares, find a common denominator, and roll everyone down to a more managable number while at the same time keeping it all equal?

(Basically, I'm trying to ask if payment can't just be handled mathematically in accordance with what everyone owes everyone else.)

 

[Shivarage]

(Basically, I'm trying to ask if payment can't just be handled mathematically in accordance with what everyone owes everyone else.)

Yep, this is absolutely true but it makes sense which apparently governments aren't there to do...

 

[hazabaza1]

And now the Steam sale has come along to resolve that.

 

[I.N.producer]

The funny thing is that this article is completely unaffected by Steam and other digital sales.

Just the timing of the article with the Summer Sale is a little funny. Mostly because the article says how sales are down while Steam's servers are occasionally overloaded by increased sales.

 

[Sonicron]

The Summer Games Drought is a phenomenon that has been observed for many, many years now. Anyone yelling doom at this time has simply not done their research.
Besides, digital sales are doing just fine, if the overburdened Steam servers are any indication.

 

[shrekfan246]

I kinda wish the OP had actually contributed a bit more to the discussion, or sparked one instead of just linking an article, but okay, I'll bite.

I'm not surprised either, and you want to know why? Because June/July (the time when all of the gamer kiddies have gotten out of school and are pent up, wanting some way to let out all of their excess energy, mind) have apparently been universally decided upon to never have any good video game releases. So the only things being sold are older or used games, which none of the publishers care about anymore because obviously a game's sales only matter in the first three months and after that they can definitely determine whether it was a success or failure.

And there's still another entire month until anything worthwhile is released (unless you're a Kingdom Hearts fan and own a 3DS, in which case it's only half a month. Oh boy).

 

[DanielBrown]

*clears throat*
Doooooooooooom!
Quick! Buy more games or we'll all die!!!1

Yeah, but honestly, there hasn't really been much new releases lately. At least none I'm intrested in.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Why are you not surprised?

I can see why you might be concerned or apathetic or understanding that this is the summer release drought so of course sales have gone down but why surprised?

It just seems like such an odd emotion. I'm not surprised that the Conservatives continue to blunder through British politics like drunken house cats and I would be surprised if they suddenly became competent. What is the opposite of your lack of surprise?

I'm sorry for getting so caught up but the use of the word makes no sense here.

 

[floppylobster]

Mobile gaming. Why pay more for less when all most people want is a quick distraction?

 

[Zing]

With the exception of Max Payne 3 nothing released in like the last 6 months has interested me. I guess you can count D3 since I bought it, but I returned it for a refund 2 days later.

Release drought, it always happens around this time of the year.

 

[Zipa]

This is likely why steam have a big freaking sale every summer... Valve are smarter than people think.