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Retail Game Advertising Rises Sharply

Posted by simoniker on from the the-day-the-discounts-died? dept.

Thanks to Reuters/Yahoo for their report indicating that retail advertisements for video games in newspapers rose almost 77 percent in the second quarter compared to a year earlier. Interestingly, the survey also found that "...more than 40 percent of game ads in the quarter were for games costing $49.99, the usual price for top titles, compared with about 33 percent in the prior quarter. At the same time, the number of ads for discount $19.99 titles declined." Does this show companies are concentrating more on full-price wannabe blockbusters, as opposed to cut-price shovelware? In another intriguing finding, the survey also revealed average GameCube software prices at $26, compared to more than $33 for both PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

4 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. Advertising and Shovel-ware by His+Nastiness · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At this point I don't know that it is fair to label $20 software shovelware. Especially in the case of consoles (with the possible exception of the XBox) many of the $20 titles are simply older software that won't sell as well at a higher price point because all the enthusiasts have already bought it. No point in spending advertising dollars on 1 or 2 year old titles. However for $20 I can't see GTAIII as shovelware, Valusoft on the other hand... Also I note XBox as the exception as it seems that atleast the first several titels that went to $20 were the worst titles they had. Just a way of unloading. What I am more interested in is a study of advertising within games. I'll grant that a game willnot sell as many copies as a movie may make in attendance but I was exceptionally irritated at the in-game advertising for nVidia, PowerAde and Pentium4 in "enter the Matrix". I already paid $50 for the damn thing I don't want to have to be subjected to adverts as well. If nothing else, in the case of the Matrix game, it only serves to pull oyu out of the universe that is being presented to you. I'm wondering how soon advertising will make it into almost all mainstream games?

  2. This makes sense by chadlnx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There is no doubt a collective concious between all gamers when it comes to pricing. Gamers all know that sooner or later, all games will fall below the 20 - 30 dollar price range. To offset this, retailers are aggressively pushing new product.

    I saw this first hand after recently launching GameFarmer, a service which compares console video game prices and allows users to set price alerts on games in their wishlists. Most gamers purchase preowned or set price alerts on new games right away, many times before they are released in stores.

    I think a lot of it also has to do with the fact music sales are slipping and video games are still growing at a very healthy rate. In many cases bridging the lost revenue gap at places such as Wal-Mart and Target (who has an extensive online gaming advertising campaign).

  3. Can we keep the editorializing to a minimum? by Mike+Hawk · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Does this show companies are concentrating more on full-price wannabe blockbusters, as opposed to cut-price shovelware?

    Are you saying these are the only two types of games being produced? Is it possible to mod the original as flamebait? Who is editing this crap before it gets onto the main games page?

  4. Wacko stats.... by eclipsemgp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Those numbers are skewed a little. There were two games advertised to death, mainly because their movie was coming out the same time. You could not go anywhere without seeing "Enter the Matrix" or "Tomb Raider" ads. I would wager a bet these two games had a lot to do with the inflated numbers.