video games sales down.

[maddawg IAJI]

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.

Pretty much, I mean, what was the biggest thing to come out in the last few months? An obscure Suda 51, an underwhelming Ghost Recon Sequel and Darksiders 2, which hasn't been talked about at all in the last few months. It really has been a slow couple months.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

If they'd stop spamming the Skyrim DLC commercial everywhere ("Better with Kinect!") and actually release the damn thing on PC then I bet their sales would go up.

I was excited about Skyrim at the end of last year. After that I purchased Tera because some friends did. Aside from either of those being enough to hold me over for awhile, all the games I'm looking forward to are TBA or being pushed back. Here's hoping the Borderlands release date sticks.

 

[somonels]

How can this be, I've spent over ?2 since last year, in fact, I've spent ?3,27.
Pick up the pace, people.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

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.

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.

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.

And how many months has it been since the Christmas shopping season wrapped up? That's why we're in a decline. It happens every year, big spike at Christmas, big drop until October or November.

 

[targren]

And how many months has it been since the Christmas shopping season wrapped up? That's why we're in a decline. It happens every year, big spike at Christmas, big drop until October or November.

See my previous post. When they say "Sales are down for month X 2012" they're not comparing it to "Christmas shopping season", they're comparing it to "Month X 2011".

 

[The White Hunter]

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.)

Little content? I don't think he put any discussion really just a link.

So yeah, on new topic: yeah why can't we all just say right, fuck it, we've clearly buggered this up. Let's chill the fuck out, call it even and start over guys. Apart from pride and stock markets and blah.

 

[Kroxile]

Dat piracy and used games market is killing all of EA's profits!

 

[Brandon Logan]

Since when is NBC somewhere you go for news regarding video games?

 

[The White Hunter]

If they'd stop spamming the Skyrim DLC commercial everywhere ("Better with Kinect!") and actually release the damn thing on PC then I bet their sales would go up.

I was excited about Skyrim at the end of last year. After that I purchased Tera because some friends did. Aside from either of those being enough to hold me over for awhile, all the games I'm looking forward to are TBA or being pushed back. Here's hoping the Borderlands release date sticks.

Or hey how about a PS3 release of it too? That'd push sales up too.

We need Dreamcast 2, that'd kick the industry in the arse. Likely due to prevelence of people like me buying it to spite somicrotendy.

 

[GAunderrated]

Retail sales for games are down

Steam sales for games are jumping through the roof.

I wonder who has a better business model.

 

[DVS Storm]

Well summer is always a dry saeson for pretty much everything realted to new games, music etc. so I'm not really surprised. And well Steam sale has come so I don't think that anyone needs to worry. On a side note I've already spent 30 euros on the Steam sale........

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

And how many months has it been since the Christmas shopping season wrapped up? That's why we're in a decline. It happens every year, big spike at Christmas, big drop until October or November.

See my previous post. When they say "Sales are down for month X 2012" they're not comparing it to "Christmas shopping season", they're comparing it to "Month X 2011".

Ah, you're right. I missed the "from a year earlier" part when I read it last night. Still, the economy is bad, it's just taken it a while to catch up with the games industry, which for a while people were choosing over things like expensive vacations. Not really shocking.

Edit: Plus, it's the NPD figures. They don't track digital distribution, which could mean that all we're seeing is a significant minority of consumers starting to buy more games digitally.

 

[antipirate]

For all the people who are saying it's just because it's summer I checked the article and it is clear that they aren't comparing the sales to the spring or winter but the same month of the previous year (as is common with these kinds of numbers) However one might claim that last year had more or better summer releases and that would be a valid point. (edit:someone has mentioned this before me I missed it when I skimmed the thread)

also as many have said without digital distribution numbers this stat is much less useful because it could mean that either the industry is shrinking or the industry is going more digital or a little of both.

Regards,
Jordan

 

[KrabbiPatty]

You guys aren't FRANTIC enough about this! YOU can't SOLVE this PROBLEM without PANIC! Clearly, the only LOGICAL AND TOTALLY NOT STUPID way to interpret this is that FPS games are STAGNATING the MARKET and we MUST replace them with AS MANY ART GAMES AND PLATFORMERS as possible NOW!!!

Cliffy B is destroying gaming!

People hate violent games!

FPS games are bad!

I think I wet myself!

AAALLLCAAAAPS!!!!!11!!11



....


....


....


No but seriously, I applaud everyone for reacting with calm and logic.

 

[Yopaz]

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

Nah, they also have a Christmas sale and that is high season for video game sales.

OT: Summers are always dry seasons for pretty much everything. Movies, games, news whatever. There are usually great titles being released in fall or around Christmas. Video game sales are low because the number of big titles being released is down. There's Steam sales, but those numbers wont be available to anyone and there's The Last Story being released on the other side of the ocean. Other than that I can't really think of anything.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

There are better alternatives. For instance, in the UK you can rent a game for £5 for 5 days. On Lovefilm you can rent 2 discs at a time (games and films) for £11.20 a month. So your saving loads of cash. Also a lot of games can be completed in 2 days (dont care about achievements) so buying a game new for £40 is a waste of money, even if you can resell it. I bought ego Batman 2 new on amazon, played it, got 100% achievements and sold it within a week. That game cost me total £12 to play. On Lovefilm i could have kept it a month for less money.

 

[Jfluffy]

US **retail** sales of video games fell for 7th month, it even says in the article "Excluded are sales of used games and rentals as well as digital and social-network spending." I'm not too concerned.

 

[GAunderrated]

Guys, sales are down for the 7th month in a row. Not just down for this month.

Really, it's just symptomatic of how bad the games released this year have been. There wasn't much worth buying, and it doesn't really look like much worth buying is on the way either. Everyones too busy making lackluster MMOs or bad F2P games.

I'd be inclined to agree. The stagnation of recent games is becoming more apparent. I hate to beat a dead horse for the millionth time but E3 is another prime example. It stagnated even more than usual which is really saying something. Many AAA games are ripping each other off that they are starting to meld into one game.

Thanks to on-disc DLC, day one DLC, online codes, new subscription services for previously free content, and unique pre-order exclusives for 20 different places, I find myself feeling less inclined buy games that require or have any of the above BS. As you can tell that excludes many many games.

The crap is piling up and I have a feeling that many people like myself are getting sick of it.

Of course i'd like to point out this is all speculation and opinion on my part.

 

[Sanguinedragon]

please see my edit