Retail Game Advertising Rises Sharply

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.

Comments

This makes sense

[chadlnx]

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).

Wacko stats....

[eclipsemgp]

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.