video games sales down.
- Thread starter Sanguinedragon
- Start date
I don't think that it's "the world is going to end" cry, and it may also be that the summer months are slow. What the article does say that may be of concern is that this is the "seventh month in a row." Low sales may not affect the industry as a whole, but how many of those smaller studios that publish games/franchises that you may love may not survive this current drought? The big companies, especially those that everyone seems to rail against at the drop of a connection, like Ubisoft and EA might need to tighten their belts a bit, but those smaller companies might not fair so well. Perish the thought, they might even get scooped up by the aforementioned "enemies of gamers everywhere!"
I have a feeling interest rates play a part in this? (Question mark to indicate I know I'm on shaky ground here.)FalloutJack said:
Let's have a shaky-example-I-just-thought-up!
Starting situation:
> America owes Bosnia £30 and pays 5% annual interest.
> Bosnia owes America £50 and pays 1% annual interest.
Situation after "rolling down":
> America owes Bosnia nothing.
> Bosnia owes America £20 and pays 1% annual interest.
Has Bosnia lost money? America has stopped paying any interest at all, while Bosnia is still paying interest on their remaining debt. Would Bosnia be in a better position if they stayed in greater debt to America (at the lower interest rate) in order to rake in the higher interest rate on America's debt to them?
Or - if my guestimation skills are lacking - can the above numbers be adjusted until it is true that one country loses out?
(New thought: Why on Earth was Bosnia the first country I could think of beginning with B?)
EDIT: Numbers were inconsistent when I first posted.
If you didn't RTFA, (or even the link itself) you missed it, but it's actually a report that sales of games are down for the 7th consecutive month. It's not a summer thing.Owyn_Merrilin said:
On the other hand, a lackluster year-to-date as far as releases go, combined with an ongoing economic disaster does tend to have that sort of effect.
I can see why. For my part, there simply haven't been video games that interest me that have been released, so naturally, I haven't been buying. Hopefully something will pique my interest soon, but in the meantime, I will quite happily play the titles I already own.
I read somewhere that the current total debt held by all nations combined is several times higher than the current amount of money in the world. And when you add private citizens to that, it becomes staggering.FalloutJack said:
So kinda hard to do that, especially since the banks (the ones who have most to gain on this) control the economic climate.
It doesn't really mean anything, games aren't going anywhere and the industry is still standing tall.
They just won't release anything decent yet.
They just won't release anything decent yet.
You know I often wonder the same thing. But that wouldn't really solve the problem, it'd just equalise the debt, people need to put money into the economy to get it going is the thing and people don't have money to spend to get the economy going.... because nobody has money to spend because few people are hiring because nobody is spending money. the other issue being that even if one country manages to get it's economy going, it's immediately weighed down by all the other countries who haven't, because while that country can afford things, no one else can buy from it, thus we have an excess and production lowers again.FalloutJack said:
Interestingly, the economies in most countries are getting better once more, we are slowly climbing out of the recession. However, people are so far in debt that they are focused on paying it off, so while the economy is growing, it's a very slow growth because people are paying their debt, not putting money into the economy. Personal debt needs to be balanced, not international. If people didn't owe so much, the economy would grow better because people would spend again.
Okay, your reply is the most interesting, so...here goes!MetalMagpie said:
It is possible, even likely, that interest rates play a part in all of this. It is a thought I had not considered, though in the interests of cutting through the Gordian Knot, some might consider handwaving this to allow the solution to pass. My theory on rolling everyone back is already on shaky ground since I'm not sure who owes who what exactly. However, it seems to me the reason why payment is being SO SLOW is - aside from simply not having the money - is how everybody seems to owe everybody else.
Now, this is not a perfect solution. Obviously, it doesn't exactly make the problem go away. What it DOES do is make the problem smaller by simple virtues of math. Someone will still lose on the deal while others may have most of their problems solved overnight. But it could do in a short amount of time what the long road will take YEARS to do. I dunno. I get tired of this recession crap.
...FalloutJack said:
I'm sorry, but I'm pretty surprised by how little people seem to understand about the economy.
If country A owes $40 to country B, and B owes $40 to country A, net borrowing is zero. If both countries then agree not to pay each other back, nothing changes. Both countries still have a net debt of zero. The registration has changed, but financially and economically nothing has changed.
If both countries would pay the same interest, there would still be no change. Both would pay and receive the same amount of interest, so net interest is zero. If net borrowing is positive for one of the two countries, or if one of the two countries pays a higher interest, things become slightly more difficult. If A owes $50 to B, net debt is $10. Reducing debt to $10 for A and zero for B still doesn't change anything financially or economically. So this solution isn't going to solve any problem.
Besides that, "countries" do not have debts. Governments, companies and citizens do.
Many companies give short term credit to other companies, so those companies do not have to pay the bill immediately. Because every company receives such credit, net debt is basically zero. It's about convenience and this debt is of no economic or financial meaning.
The American government has billions worth of gold stored in New York and other places which belongs to the Dutch government. The gold was shipped to the US in world war 2 to take it to safety. Transporting it back to the Netherlands would be costly and risky. Technically, the US owes the Netherlands those billions. Like companies, governments sometimes do not require other governments to pay for certain services. It's all about net debt, the rest is just an almost arbitrary number.
In the Netherlands, total net debt is negative, that is, we are net savers. Although many people have high debts (mostly mortgages), people have far higher savings (mostly savings for pensions). That means we're exporting capital to countries which are net debtors. Net debt of the world is zero (government, company or citizen always borrows from another), but depending on who is lending to whom, some people earn interest and others pay interest.
Also, to the few brilliant minds pointing out that sales in June are usually down, they are obviously compared to June the year before, as is the usual comparison.
Well, if we have to be precise it actually says "A new report says U.S. retail sales of video-game hardware, software and accessories fell for a seventh consecutive month." Which means very little actually. For all we know, the market may just be moving towards digital distribution, which would make the drop in retail prices nothing much. Or it may be something else. Based on this information, I don't think anybody here would be able to make a perfect reading of the market. And besides, sales have been falling for 7 months...so ever since new year. I don't know if that trend is remarkable or not - the big releases are at the end of the year, it might be that things do go downwards slowly until then. I don't have any sales trends from before.targren said:
Which is weird because I know that most kids often get rewards or something similar for doing really well in the school year at the end of summer. Maybe it's because not as many people are playing games in the summer that they don't release as much.Hal10k said:
Comparisons like that are generally made compared to the same month the prior year. So fewer games were sold retail in Jan 2012 than Jan 2011, fewer in Feb 2012 than 2011, etc... So whether or not the "big months" are at the end of the year doesn't really come into play. As for digital distribution, I don't think that's a huge factor since (and I say this as a member myself), the PCGMR[footnote]PC Gamer Master Race. T'is a joke.[/footnote] is still the minority compared to the UCGM[footnote]Unwashed Console Gaming Masses. Still a joke.[/footnote], and full 360/PS3 games aren't generally DD yet.DoPo said:
It's the summer. Sales go down every summmer. They pick up in the fall as weather turns bad, as vacations end, that sort of thing...Sanguinedragon said:
Kind of like the tides... They roll in, they roll out...