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Games To Outsell Music, Video In UK

Posted by Soulskill on from the step-aside-grandpa dept.

The BBC reports that for the first time, spending on games and game hardware will outstrip sales in the music and video industries. Quoting: "In the last five years the video games market has more than doubled in value, while music sales have stagnated. The good news for game makers in the report was balanced by grim tidings for high street retailers. 'The music and video market is not just suffering from a slowing of growth but a massive transfer of spend to online,' says Malcolm Pinkerton of Verdict Research. It is online sales of CDs and DVDs that have grown rapidly, rather than digital downloads, which still only account for around 4% of music and video sales."

5 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Duh by Eudial · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not all that hard to understand, considering how much they charge for a video game.

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    GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
    1. Re:Duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      That's irrelevant. People could choose to spend the money they spend on games on music instead.

      The real problem, as the article mentions, is that they are including gaming hardware sales in the figures.

    2. Re:Duh by WDot · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not to mention that there's no guarantee that you'll finish a video game. You might get sick of the gameplay, or hit a wall that you can't surpass, or you'll have other games that you'd rather play instead. The CD would have to be a hell of an unlistenable album for one to not make it through once.

      Also, DRM notwithstanding, you can use a CD in a lot more places than you can use a videogame. You can use it in your car, your computer, or your speaker setup. You can rip it to your hard drive and make derivative works with the songs or mix CDs/cassettes/mp3 players with your favorite tracks. A game can only be used on its given platform for its given purpose--gaming. Sure, some people make derivative works (mods, machinima) from video games, but it's much easier to slap a song on your home videos and webcam sessions than it is to animate and script a game world.

    3. Re:Duh by KDR_11k · · Score: 2, Interesting

      However, many games are so linear that every play-through is essentially the same and most interesting game situations that can arise just from the interaction of the player and game probably happen throughout one playthrough. Sure, you won't listen to the same track or CD non-stop but you'll probably mix it into your playlist and thus have it get played more often.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  2. Re:Poor Comparison by Notabadguy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You've hit the nail on the head. I'm *really* tired of seeing unprofessionally done surveys and studies and irrelevant comparisons make the news. In other news, consumers are spending FAR more money at McDonalds than at Burger King. I sampled two groups. The first group told me how much money they spend on average at Burger King per month. The second group told me how much they spend on average at McDonalds per month. They also included how much their gas bill was, the cost of their car, and a dollar value for the opportunity cost in time that they spent going to McDonalds. Can you believe it? McDonalds is more popular! *sigh* I feel that my own completely made up survey has about as much credibility as the last few surveys that have made their way onto the Slashdot boards.