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US Videogame Sales Have Biggest Drop In 9 Years
alphadogg writes "The recession appears to have finally caught up with the video game market. Sales of video game hardware and software were down by around one-third in June compared to the same month last year. After initially showing positive growth as the US slid into recession, the latest figures mark the fourth month of declines and the largest year-on-year decline in almost 9 years. 'The first half of the year has been tough largely due to comparisons against a stellar first half performance last year, but still, this level of decline is certainly going to cause some pain and reflection in the industry,' said Anita Frazier, a games analyst with NPD Group. She added, 'The size of the decline could also point to consumers deferring limited discretionary spending until a big event (must-have new title, hardware price cut) compels them to spend.' The entire video game market in the US was worth $1.2 billion in June, down 31 percent from the same period last year, according to NPD Group."
June was a dry month for video gaming. Not many good games were released (except for Infamous).
Well, I'm glad to see someone's correlating a drop in sales with the recession. If the history of the MPAA/RIAA is any indication, the game industry will claim OMG Piratez! and ask congress to pass whatever bill they want to make it punishable by death to pirate a game.
My work here is dung.
Watch.. this will turn into a big "See? Piracy is ruining the gaming business" blamefest... It's easier to blame piracy rather than crappy game design.. Of course, I'm sure the economy is playing a part as well. Although, from what I've read, people are reluctant to give up their hobbies, even in the face of a bad economy.
XenoPhage
Technological Musings
Money's tight. And honestly, I'm sick of seeing games priced at $59.99. I can wait until they hit ~$30 and buy them then. I'm long past the time when I HAD to have a game as soon as it releases.
So yeah. Lower the price of the games at initial launch, you'll make more sales....IMNHAAO (in my not humble at all opinion)
Sent from your iPad.
I don't believe NPD keeps track of used game sales, and a lot of gamers will be turning to Gamestop, Ebay, and Amazon to pick up used games there instead of buying them new. I've personally been buying more used and even selling a bit of my collection as there seems to be a lot of buyers out there (and of course, more sellers).
Games are too expensive to keep buying new. I let the suckers do that for me.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I realize that the issues are probably mostly economic (lack of capital both to produce and buy games), but here's my spiel: I just don't see the point. First of all, the games shouldn't be that expensive to produce. At >$50 a pop, if I find that I don't like it, it's just a waste of money. Maybe if prices came down, I'd experiment more. But now, I'm more than happy to buy games that are a few years old to save $20 when I know that I'm only going to play it for a month or so.
Second of all, what good games have come out recently? I realize that it's a hugely subjective topic (I recall a topic on Slashdot a few weeks ago on graphics and video games), but honestly, all I want in a game is good gameplay and a nice multiplayer environment. And all my friends play nothing but Melee, I don't see why I'd bother playing anything else. That's how it usually ends up anyways; no matter how many games I have, Ijust end up playing one over and over again while the others gather dust. So why bother buying?
And to add to the cost, so many consoles (especially the Wii) require buying extra peripherals, which will also end up going to the wayside. It's just not worth it anymore.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
How long before they raise prices to $70-80 and up? I mean, it's obviously the best, no, the only way to make more money. Oh yes. The only way indeed.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Most of the games that are coming out, suck.
Plain and simple. The problem with developers is that they are confusing great technology with great games. They can go hand in hand, but largely speaking -- games need story, innovation, depth. I played Defcon a few years back and was amazed at what innovation was put into such a small game.
Too bad the only thing developers do is give us some form of a shooter lately, and change the graphics and call it amazing. Bioshock had a good story, but that was like 2 years ago already.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
With 1.5 million forced house-sales in the US one should be able to imagine that people have less money to spend on more critical things, like food. So I am not really suprised with this.
It's *about time*. Maybe now we'll see Nintendo initiate a price cut on their hardware. But boy, it's really amazing to see how long it's taken for people to limit their spending on video games. They really seem to value their entertainment a lot more than I realized. Perhaps video game entertainment has become so immersive that in the minds of people stressed by the economy and life in general, video game escapism has become almost a necessity. I could be wrong, but I know that for myself they've always provided a great place to retreat while I sorted out my thoughts.
Recession, my ass....try game exchanges, emulators and the iPhone/touch.
Hey look everyone! It's a spammer! Be sure to point and laugh before this is modded to oblivion!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
With the lack of decent games (especially those that are playable under linux or wine) recently, I found myself digging out Diablo 2 and Baldur's Gate 2 to play.
Waiting on Diablo 3 and the new Monkey Island though
Personally, I haven't bought any games recently because I'm still catching up on all the great games that came out recently!
I'm re-playing FEAR 2. I'm playing FAR CRY 2 for the first time. Need to start and finish DAMNATION. Need to finish the LOST: VIA DOMUS crap-heap. Recently beat PLANTS vs. ZOMBIES. All whilst still playing TEAM FORTRESS 2.
My laundry list for games to buy is long, but I'm waiting until I finish these! I want to play TRINE, I want to buy and re-play all those LUCASARTS games that just came out again on Steam, I want to start another MMO like the new Star Trek Online or Knight of the Old Republic MMO.
This is actually a great time for games, for me personally.
I am unbelievable wealthy and I will continue to buy a lot of games! The economy? Pah! It matters not one whit to me! Now, fetch me my gold-plated Playstation 3! While I play the role of "Snake" in Metal Gear Solid 4, you plebes can stick to playing "Snake" on your outdated mobile phones! Hah, hah, hah! Worms!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I wonder how many there are like me who started renting games due to so many disappointing releases. Gamefly has saved me far more than it costs with games I might have bought and wound up not enjoying. I've been buying more used games as well. And I'm not even suffering to any real extent from the current economy. It's purely the result of too many "Holy crap, I spent $60 on this turd?" reactions.
Stop trying so hard. The word with the obvious spelling is the right choice.
captcha: souped
Sorry to offend your sensibilities. I blame way too much network tuning and programming.
XenoPhage
Technological Musings
"The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of compression."
I don't think I've ever seen that web error.
There is a war going on for your mind.
I agree that the piracy card will be played and that we'll see some more fire aimed at Gamestop and that darned used games market. I find myself playing some old games right now... Grand Theft Auto III, Aerobiz Supersonic and Third World War. Pedantic... but the word you want is "cue". I don't understand why this is confusing... these words are not homophones. I suppose it all boils down to overthinking while typing.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
seriously ... I'm not surprised. What happened to innovation? Most games now are all sequels to previous games with better graphics or newer engines than the previous release and the principal is still the same. Where is the cutting edge ? Something new that hasn't been done before ? A must have, giving the player full control of the virtual world . I think back on earlier rpg's for e.g. The player was actually allowed to input text instead of choosing from some stupid presets. Think of this with today's technology. In the end its not really the development studios its the damn publishers and other companies funding development studios so they can have their ads on startup screens and rape the profits.
I can only speak for my wife and I but there just aren't any new titles we want to buy right now. Last game I bought was Fallout 3. Since then I've bought all 4 expansion packs. Next game I was planning on buying was Bioshock 2 but now that's been pushed back. There aren't any other games I'm caring about right now. Between Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2, I'm happy.
Maybe rather than blaming everything on the economy they should compare what came out this time last year to what has come out this year. I spend money when games I want to play are released. No good games = no spent cash. It's that simple. For me at least.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
a 1 month sample size? As a gamer, I can say that I had disposable income this month and wanted new games for my 360, but didn't see anything worth my $60. I ended up buying some games that came out last year used from Gamestop. You would also expect hardware sales for the major consoles to be declining, as they've been out for so many years now. There's nothing in those numbers that makes linking this to the recession, anything more than a random guess.
The problems discussed in TFA aren't being felt across the entire home entertainment industry. Overall sales of DVD, Blu-ray and digital content fell just 3.9% in the first half of 2009, though sales of physical media fell more. Rentals are up over eight percent in the same period.
High prices and the recent lack of diversity in titles have kept us out of the market for videogames. We own a PS3, but no PS3 games. We use it to play DVDs and Blu-rays, and to play our collection of PS2 games. Every so often we rent a new PS3 game to try it out, but none of them has yet made the case for spending $60.
I've started buying all my games off Steam for precisely this reason. I've picked up:
I've actually stopped buying games for my Wii because I don't want to shell out $50 for something I may or may not like. There are a lot of games out there and price is the biggest deterrent from trying something new unfortunately and Steam seems to be the only place to get new games at reasonable prices.
I'm sure that folks are being more careful spending their dollars these days. If the economy goes to hell and you've got less money to spend you won't be throwing it away on crap. But the problem isn't really that the economy has gone to hell, it's that there's just a glut of crap to buy.
It seems to me that very few video games are actually worth their price these days. You pay >$50 for a game with good games have been released this year?
Plus you've got the vendor lock-in... Gotta buy your console for $300ish... Then you're looking for games that run on that console... And then something good will come out that's exclusive to some other console... So you're looking at a real price of $350 to play that exclusive game (unless you already bought every console there is)...
I don't think the problem is that people don't have enough money to buy video games. I think the problem is that people are finding better ways to entertain themselves. Maybe they're replaying old games... Maybe they're milking an MMOG subscription... Maybe they're renting movies... Maybe they're reading books... Maybe they're just hanging out... Whatever.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
summer months are always down time for video games... especially with no recent hardware/consoles released in the past 2 years.
I've found the recession to actually cause me to buy more games. Here's the kicker - I rarely buy them at $59.99 at release (maybe 1 per month, down from 4-6 across PC, 360, Wii, PS3, PSP, DS). So, I'm spending less on games, but playing more.
Considering the typical game release lifecycle:
1. Hype game months before release
2. Fanboys proclaim it the next big thing
3. Release game
4. Lukewarm community reception
5. Fanboy revolt/denial - "the game is great, you have to know how to play it"
6. Play for 5-10 days
7. Game is all but abandoned on-line.
8. GOTO 2
What I'm doing is hitting up games on the cheap. Say I'm mildly interested in a game, but it's not a ZOMG GOTTA HAVE NOW!!!, I've just learned a bit of patience and will get it on a price drop. It's amazing how a middle of the road game can be a bad experience at $60, but a decent play at $20(FEAR 2 for example).
I am a gamer, and there are plenty of good games out there. (Note: Good, not great, but Great games are very hard to come by). There just aren't that many new game releases right now. Most of them are waiting until it is closer to the holiday shopping season. I know I'm saving up for Halo:ODST and Left 4 dead 2 before I make a new purchase. Yes, the economy has hit me, but I still want to consume new games!
A logged in account and everything. I'll be sure to enemy it in case it comes up again while I have mod points.
There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
I don't really think video games are that expensive if you put everything in the right context. I remember back in the day (1995) that most new video games cost $40 a piece. Using this handy inflation calculator, a new video game should cost $56.61 adjusted for inflation from 1995. Unlike computer hardware, which follows Moore's law and consistently decreases in price per goodness, the amount of programming required to make a game is roughly constant, so the price of games should roughly follow inflation.
Or to think about it in a different way, it's a really cheap form of enteratainment if you compute the hourly cost of it. A typical computer game is worth about 40 hours of entertainment, which means you're paying about $1.50 per hour for a $60 game. Compared with watcing a movie in theaters or on DVD ($4/hr), or dining out ($15/hr), or paintball/lasertag ($10/hr+) it's a remarkably inexpensive form of entertainment.
Renting or buying used games is a MUCH smarter alternative. Too many games bought to only be played for 3weeks before collecting dust.
are they tallying the MMOs in this too? ... as well as the micropayment model some games have? ... news item worthless without the reference to the data they use to calculate these results.
This isn't about the "economic recession". The decline in video game sales from last June to this June can be explained easily by the following: - Last June people were still buying a new system (this year is another year further from their inception). I bought a PS3 for the first time last year for example. - This year there is a HUGE absence of new, quality titles available right now. Most people are waiting for the large flood of games that are being released this coming fall/winter. This is usually the case seasonally, but this June seems dryer than last. - Last year the Guitar Hero/RB craze was still going strong, and since the "newness" has worn off quite a bit by now, so as the demand for $150-200 accessory packages. They were lucky to be doing as well as they were last June. They are still making a fair buck. People traditionally play fewer games in the summer do to: wanting to be outdoors instead of turning into mushrooms, vacations, sports, etc. This isn't time to cry "the industry is way down due to the recession". Just wait for the holiday season with: Diablo 3, Aion, Batman:Darkham Asylum, Rock Band: Beatles, and a ton of others being released.
Looking further would invariably produce "it's the pesky pirates".
It's a very human trait to look for the culprit outside of oneself. I.e. it's pirates. Not that I make sequels of games nobody wanted in the first place or that customers don't accept the rental system (aka SecuRom) DRM.
Produce games that people want and stop including crippling DRM that people loathe and they will buy. I just recently bought a few old games for a total of less than 50 bucks. Yes, on Steam, and yes, it's a bit hypocritical to rant about rented games when buying from Steam. But Steam offers pretty much what I want at the "price" of having it tied to my account. I can accept that. That's about as much DRM as I can live with. I don't resell games. But I expect my games to work whenever and however I want them to. Steam offers that.
Gimme what I want and I'll buy. Don't and I won't. Simple as that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I hang out with mostly college kids and I have to say that very few of them are wiling or capable to spend $60 on a given title. Even the latest OMGWTFAWESOME titles that have massive cult fanbases (I'm looking at you Halo) can't garner as many sales on a reputation alone when the sequels are just half-assed remakes of the original. As other slashdotters have mentioned, prices are just too high for the crap we are being sold these days.
That being said, I wonder if The EVO can make any headway in this market since, according to that article, games should be roughly $20.00. Start offering gamers a chance to have a new title for the price of a used one and XBox, Nintendo, and Sony may wake up and realize that there is a new kid on the block. Of course, that is assuming that word about the evo gets spread around the population in general.
Cheers.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
1. Drastic increase of DRM disruptiveness and intrusiveness. This makes playing inconvenient.
2. Gameplay did not progress at all. I would say it stagnated, which means, no incentive to buy new games. Maybe people are NOT that infatuated with pretty graphics, after all?
3. Weak economy.
These three factors don't just add up, but multiply each other.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Here in Canada the latest games are now $69.99 CDN each. Raising the prices to these extremes during tougher economic times simply hurts sales. I have refused to buy any new game over $59.99 CDN not because I don't think the games are great, but simply because as a consumer, I can no longer justify this much for a game. There is an economic limit and I'm sure that game prices have now passed the profit maximization point.
...stupid. I recently picked up HL2 Orange Box. It does NOT work on 3 machines, one 3 years old, two new this year. Steam just downloads and downloads forever over 22 mbps cable connection and the game never starts. I also just picked up Neverwinter Nights 2. It needs to patch for about 5 hours before it's playable. I tried the unpatched before patching. The game deadends easily and crashes frequently and runs really slow. I feel sorry for the folks who bought this back when it was new and had to wait for the patches. Even if the games worked as designed, the general design of games is so poor when it comes to playability that playing them has become boring. So, when money is tight, people quickly figure out what's necessary and what's not necessary and broken crappy games at $40, $50 or $60 are simply not necessary. Expect sales to continue to decline.
Probably because last June we had the release of Metal Gear Solid 4, as well as a very expensive, but popular with the casual crowd, Guitar Hero World Tour. With Grand Theft Auto 4 and Wii Fit launching close to June, that probably affected the sales as well.
Stop trying so hard. The word with the obvious spelling is the right choice.
captcha: souped
Nah, there are just so many idiots making the "Piracy is killing our bottom line" excuse that we've decided to make them stand in line.
It has something to do with the fact that developers continue to charge $60 for a game that's the exact same thing as the first version but with better graphics.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
They should make a game of your post.
I would have spent money on games, but there
a) aren't any good ones
b) the few good ones have too much DRM, or require are Steam style (you don't actually own them, you rent them)
Not the recession, the poor gaming companies.
There's a recession, people are out of work (despite what some think, food and shelter are more important than gaming). Few good games have been released, (it's about the plotline, not how big you can draw the imaginary gun). MMORPGs supply ongoing gaming experience for a low, flat rate per month.
I realize that these are hard problems to fix, but the "silver bullet / soundbite" method appeals to the sheeple that follow the loudest voice that keeps its words small. So we're bound to hear from casual or even non-gamers how piracy and used game stores are the source of these woes.
Accept it - adapt and overcome. Figure out how to rebut these claims - keep your words small and your voice loud. Repetition never hurts either.
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
The phrase is a reminder that two events may not be linked, not proof positive that they're not. You don't measure below-average rainfall during a drought, and then say "Let's keep in mind, other factors could be at play than a drought!" A drought IS an extended period of reduced rainfall, by definition. Similarly, there is no question that low sales are linked to a recession, because they define a recession.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Any drop/gain will be the biggest drop/gain in X $time_unit. Markets cannot expand indefinitely, eventually there is a saturation. They will also go up and down. Statistics are not inherently meaningful. Trends usually break. Do they count sales of monthly subscriptions as sales? People are buying some games over and over and over and over and over and over. The more MMOs there are, the less NEW games people will buy.
Wednesday i was older than i've ever been! Stop the presses! i've been getting older every day for 34 years going. Analysts wonder how much longer this unprecedented aging can continue.
Video Game Makers,
Consider making your games less expensive, more re-playable and more interesting. With the monstrous processing power and high def TVs and monitors and other wizbang input systems... this should be easy.
Here's another thought: be grateful that your sales are as good as they are. Money is tight for most families. If you're turning a profit at all, you should be grateful, not bitchy that you're not making as much as last year.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Look at these TERRIBLE games from June...would you consider any of these blockbuster games? Not I.
FTA
1) Prototype, Xbox 360, 419,900 units
2) UFC 2009: Undisputed, Xbox 360, 338,300 units
3) EA Sports Active Bundle, Wii, 289,100 units
4) Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Wii, 272,400 units
5) Wii Fit, Wii, 271,600 units
6) Night Fight Round 2, Xbox 360, 260,800 units
7) Night Fight Round 2, PlayStation 3, 210,300 units
8) Mario Kart with Wheel, Wii, 202,100 units
9) Red Faction Guerrilla, Xbox 360, 199,400 units
10) Infamous, PlayStation 3, 192,700 units.
GAMES FROM JUNE 2008!!!
Metal Gear Solid 4 - 774,600 + PS3 Bundle consoles sold!!!
Guitar Hero Aerosmith - 570,000
GTA 4 - Alot...
This article is ridiculous.
Here's a suggestion...
Try selling the fucking games for more than 45 minutes.
Seriously, instead of the normal price-dropping sequence, one thing I'm seeing a lot lately (mostly in niche games) is, after the really SHORT period where no one buys a game for $60, they just stop shipping it entirely!
A few months ago, I actually paid $65 for a USED copy of Ar Tonelico since I'd missed news of its release and no one had it! Not gamestop, not amazon... it's nuts.
To me, when someone says this, it implies that they either are unreasonable picky, have a very narrow taste in games, or just haven't done any looking around. If you are the first, well then there's nothing I can do for you. If you are one of those people who has decided that anything less than perfection is failure then you will be continually disappointed in life. That is just how it goes. If you are one of the second people that is fine, but then don't whine about it. If you only like like a narrow selection of games just know that about yourself, and don't say that games "suck" just because they don't all cater to your narrow tastes. In the case of the last kind of person, well then just spend a bit of time on the net doing some research and downloading some demos.
However, I'll even help you out. Here are some games I have picked up recently that are worth it. Now please note not all of them are new releases, just games that I have recently purchased:
Street Fighter 4. This is an arcade style fighting game. One of the very best ever. Great visuals, great sound, fun to play, just an all around great game. Supports online play too so you can play vs other people remotely.
Aztaka. This is a side scrolling action-RPG in the style of Zelda II and such. However it is extremely well done, modern visuals and game play and the like. Also makes very good use of the mouse for various game aspects. It isn't that long, but it is good fun and not too expensive.
Left4Dead. Zombies and guns, what more do you want? Seriously though the game has excellent gameplay and wonderful coop play. Either with friends (and it has a system making it easy to play with your friends) or with random people or just with computer controlled characters, it is a great shooter.
Command and Conquer Red Alert 3: Classic Westwood RTS game. It is a fantastic addition to the series. Gameplay is smooth, difficulty curve is good and most of all it is just damn fun. I particularly like the RA game world because it doesn't take itself seriously, it is a goofy take on modern warfare. Also the cutscenes are top notch, they got actors who really did a good job at playing it.
Assassin's Creed. Sandbox world exploration and melee combat game. As the name implies, you play an assassin. You go around, stab people, climb buildings, hide in bales of hay, and so on. A fairly well done double story line and just flat out fun gameplay.
Those are five of the more recent purchases I've made that spring to mind. There are plenty more games I can recommend that are a little older (but still in the last year or so). There's also a few that have come out that I've not yet bought because I haven't had the time to play everything I have.
There are plenty of games out there, you just need to spend some time looking or asking around. Metacritic is a good starting point, they aggregate reviews so you can get a feel for how the response to a game is over all and thus if you maybe want to spend time looking at it more in depth.
I've never gotten why people like that comparison metric. I mean I understand wanting to compare to how you did last year but at least to a 6 month rolling average. Games do not come out on rigid schedules, it isn't like "On the 4th day of June each year a massively popular game WILL be released." No, they come out when they are done, particularly in the case of better games. So you have to look at the sales over a period of time, like 6-12 months. If less games are sold for the whole year of 2009 than 2008 then yes, clearly there is a problem for the game industry. However if one month is down, so what? Maybe it just means that something people really want slid a month.
I know as a gamer I don't go around saying "Ok, it is time to buy my May game," I buy games when one I want comes out and I've got time to play it. That could mean I buy 3 games in a month, or that I buy no games for 3 months. It all depends on what is coming out when, and how my time is looking. Currently, I'm having to hold off on purchasing more games because I have too many, I've got a backlog. I bought games that I haven't yet got around to playing. Did that with Fallout 3. Picked it up not long after release since I love Fallout and it was on special. However, other than playing the intro, I haven't got around to it. Not because I wasn't enjoying it, just because I've been playing other things. However I want to play it, and I will, it is just an issue of time.
It's all piracy's fault. It's definitely not due to the recession or the fact that absolutely no decent games were released in June.
Damn pirates.
I'm sick of seeing games priced at $59.99. I can wait until they hit ~$30 and buy them then.
How do you work around "DNAS Error -103: This software title is not in service" once the publisher has pulled the plug on, say, a PS2 game's matchmaking servers after a year or two? Or do you stick to single-player or sofa multiplayer? And how long do you expect to wait for Nintendo's Earthbound to become affordable again?
The 40 hours of entertainment depends heavily upon what type of games you like though. Some of the FPS games are fairly short (10 - 15 hours) and the multiplayer is what makes or breaks them. One with good multiplayer will likely get several hundred hours of play time where as one with bad multiplayer may not even get much more than one or two matches.
There haven't been a lot of good games out in years.
Sure, the occasional one or two.
But, people have been burned so often by over-hyped and, after purchased, turned-out-to-be-crap games, that I believe people are buying less games generally and the state of the economy has just made it even worse.
game quality has been dropping drastically in the last five or so years, and I think gamers have finally caught on to that after believing so long that repackaging the same kind of game they've been playing for years with the same gameplay with slightly improved graphics makes a good game.
Yes, there are a few good, quality games sneaking through the cracks, but there were also a few good games coming out between the videogame crash of 83-84 and its rebirth with the NES.
It's just a matter of style over substance killing gaming.
It's a shame about the account number, though... what a waste. :(
np: Moritz Von Oswald Trio - Patterns 2 (Vertical Ascent)
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
This is what I've been doing for about two years now, and it's been great. I might not play the newest, "best" thing out there but if it really is as good as purported then I'll get around to it eventually.
The biggest problem I have with buying new games nowadays is that it's a huge gamble, and there's nothing lost by being patient and getting a clear view of what kind of game you're really getting.
For a new console game, $60 can get me a lot of fun, sure. Unless the game is multiplayer-centric though, the game will be just as good six months later and $40 cheaper. Pretty much any solid, but not blockbuster, game is going to hit that level in a few months. More to the point, that gives you several months of reviews and opinions - not the fawning initial review from people who may not have finished it, but the opinion of people who have perspective since they played it, then had time to digest it. There's the further benefit that any critical bugs will either be patched out or known so you can just avoid the game altogether.
Multiplayer games are an even bigger gamble, because you're relying on the fickle whims of other gamers. In a bizarre sense, I guess it's like gravity - multiplayer communities for games will dissipate unless there's sufficient mass that it can hold itself together, at which point it's there to stay. Anything of a lower level will break apart as soon as the next mid-level multiplayer game is released, which with modern shooters seems to be every other week.
And then we have PC games. If you buy a bad PC game, you're pretty much out of luck. Rare is the store that will allow you to return it for anything but another copy of the same game. DRM prevents you from selling it online once you've activated it, and you have to do that to realize that you don't like it. There's no way to win except not to play, or to mod the hell out of it until it's the game you're really looking for.
While a lot of good points are made in this discussion, the central point is mostly missed. Reading headlines in the past few days, I've seen that manufacturing is down, sales are down, homes are being repossessed, people are out of work, hell, I am out of work. I've been working reduced hours since the new year, they finally laid be off 3 weeks ago, and no one knows when things are going back to normal. The wife has been working reduced hours since last thanksgiving. Money is tight, in my house, and in every house that I know of.
I'm quite certain that a lot of slashdotters have pretty secure jobs, and they can continue to purchase such trivial things as games. But, the economy really does suck.
There will be an article coming out in a few months, revisiting this same subject, but it will be "Game sales are down for the second half of 2009". Many of these same posts will be made, "Well, they haven't RELEASED anything in the last half year that's worth PLAYING!" But, a more people are going to put two and two together to make at least one (probably correct) conclusion: "The gaming industry has also been hit by the recession, they've had layoffs, fewer people are investing money in gaming, overpaid executives have been let go - people don't have the time or money to waste on gaming."
Those of you who haven't felt the recession in your wallet yet just MIGHT consider investing money in the economy, rather than wasting your money on some new game. Of course, it's your money - do with it as you please. But, when YOUR job is outsourced to China or India, you may wish that you had spent more wisely.
My two cents, anyway.
Me? I'm not dangling at the bottom of the food chain, yet. But, I seem to be slipping downward right along with most of America.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I've not bought a mainstream game all year (although I'm just about to buy the MI remake) whereas I've usually bout 5+ per year for the last 2 decades. Basically because there's been nothing I've wanted to play. Maybe I'm too old to be the target market for mainstream publishers now, but more and more I'm looking to indie games. Gonna buy the Penumbra trilogy which has just been released for Linux, another indie.
Produce good games and I'll be a customer again!.
I honestly read it that way. I was seeing the word "up" as being implied. (Queue up the people arguing for .. etc etc). Either word fits without changing the basic intent of the statement.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
The Bannerbomb hack for the Wii really caught on in May. If you are even a little tech savvy you can pretty easily use a soft mod to play burned disks. If you are really crafty, you can play them via a USB attached HDD. That had to have an impact on games like Tiger Woods 10.
I've been buying more games than ever since I got started on Steam with the Orange Box late last year.
Most news sources are crediting the recession with a surge in gaming, being one of the cheaper entertainment options in hours-whiled-away-per-$
But they've been mostly $0.99, up to maybe $2.99 and run on my iphone, rather than $50+ running on my PC.
Better than the $50 games, some of them, too.
Unbelievable! after EA ruined bf2, they have the audacity to re-release bf1942, the better version, and try and sell it again?
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
Rare is the store
No, Rare is a developer owned by Microsoft :-)
that will allow you to return it for anything but another copy of the same game.
Then humor them. Buy a copy, exchange it as defective, and do the same for each equally defective copy that the store gives you. The publisher's defect rate at that store will skyrocket, and ideally, the chain should notice this and take it up with the publisher.
If they would just release StarCraft II already then the drop in sales would be non-existent... Come on Blizzard!
Title says it all. I think Infamous and Prototype have been the only games Ive seen recently that actually last very long at all.
And this has been another installament of Captain Obvious!
Didn't treat us PC gamers like Dog Shit we would be buying more games. I can say that while I once looked forward to buying the "big gun" games (Far Cry, Bioshock FEAR,etc) at release I know refuse to buy any game that isn't in the bargain bin.
Why? Well besides the fact that they started charging $60+ a pop which is just insane in a dead economy, the biggest reason is this: I am using a 64bit OS, namely XP X64. Despite all the horror stories about incompatibility I have found even my old Win9X era software runs quite well in 64bit. Of course with 4Gb of DDR2 going for around $40 and graphics cards with 1Gb of RAM going for $50 32bit simply didn't cut it for me anymore. So what is the problem you say? Well, while the games all run beautifully, with nary a glitch or hiccup, the &^%$^&%$&^%$ DRM doesn't work in 64bit!!!! See how in the video above how the poor guy sticks the retail disc in the drive only to get "Please insert disc in drive"? That is pretty much every stinking game for me. Meanwhile the pirates get the games prerelease with no DRM and no bullshit. And they wonder why sales are down? Maybe if you would quit kicking me in the balls I might buy more of your damned product!!!!
So now thanks to their wonderful DRM I simply don't buy release games any longer. I have found so many companies are putting out alpha quality code that even if you can find a crack at release often there will be a patch released quickly that you simply have to have to actually use the game, and who knows how long it will be until the patch is cracked? So instead I wait until the game hits the $30 and below shelves, with $20 and below being the magic number for impulse buys. I have found by that time they have released pretty much all the patches they are gonna so I can just Alcohol the game onto DVD along with the patches and crack required to actually play the product I PAID FOR so that when I feel like going back and playing again I have all the required files in one place.
Maybe we will get lucky and this recession will teach game companies to stop acting like giant douches with crap like Spore style limited installs, DRM that is nastier than any trojan (and if you have ever had to clean a PC that is infected with Starforce+Safedisc+SecuROM you know how nasty they can be) and in general treating their paying customers like dog shit who should be grateful for any alpha quality code they deem worthy of dumping on us. Sadly instead they will just scream "Piracy!" and treat us paying customers even more like shit, probably screw the console gamers with nasty DRM tricks that kill Gamestop, and generally spit in the faces of those that actually try to support them by buying their products. Meanwhile the pirates will laugh their ass off with their release day PC games and modded consoles and think those of us that pay are total idiots. And with the way game companies treat us they kinda have a point.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Seriously, why the hell should I pay $400 for a game console when I can get a decent PC for that price? Sure, the PC might not play the latest games, but it is capable of a lot more than a crippled DRM infected console.
I do not consider watching Hollywood's latest dribble to be a feature either, so Blu-ray means nothing to me.
I have shifted away from consoles because the games cannot be modified and when the publisher decides to shut off the online servers, the players are screwed.
All of the gamers I know play games as much as ever, and while the economy has affected many of us, gaming for the most part isn't a very expensive hobby, so very few of us are spending less for that reason. What we ARE doing is spending it in different places.
The numbers can be explained by:
1. The huge popularity of MMOs. Most people are active in an MMO put around half of their gaming time into it, at ~15 bucks/month. That means for the other half, you're more choosy as to what you're willing to buy - and it does also mean you're spending less over all. Very few $50 games are played for more than 1-2 months, but MMOs are usually good for several... a few years in some cases.
2. Webgames and Flash games becoming popular. These ARE profitable games, but there's no buying involved, as they're usually ad-supported instead. Time spent on these games is time when SALES are down, but PROFITS are not.
3. The fact that "US" is in the title. I've been seeing a lot of innovation from KOREAN MMO developers, but basically none from US ones - everything over here is yet another WoW clone, which means I've spent a grand total of 0 on US online gaming this year, and a good amount on Korean. Regular games are slightly better off, but even there, Japan seems to be making most of the games people are actually playing.
4. The fact that It's no secret that EA destroyed most of the US gaming industry, and it never really fully recovered. People were buying mediocre crap when there wasn't anything else to buy, but as translations get better and better, we're simply taking our money elsewhere. (See also: US car industry)
5. Indie gaming has become a significant part of the market... and likely not a part that's being polled for this article's numbers. Again, when the overwhelming majority of the big gaming companies suck, we don't stop gaming, we just take our business elsewhere.
The industry is doing fine, it's just a few crappy US companies that happen to be 1)Huge and 2)Failing. No one will miss them if they finally collapse, and once they do, new companies will replace them - ones that actually produce games we want to play. In the meantime, the rest of the world is supplying us just fine - as well as the US through indie and other side channels.
and this is what you will be getting. just bought grand ages : rome. now i think maybe i shouldnt have. not too different than first caesar game by impressions 17 years or so ago. all the big distribution companies do this shit. rehash the same shit, sell to idiots. well. we are idiots no more. enjoy your non profits.
Read radical news here
Maybe if they'd release good games, they'd not have this issue. I've been gaming since I was knee high, but have always been very picky on which platforms and games I'd pay for: I'd run into entirely too many platform rentals as a kid that I'd end up paying $3-5 for, playing for 5 minutes, and returning the same afternoon to drop $50 on a game I'd only play for a couple minutes due to how much it sucks.
That said, I just bought a new computer - the first time in years - with the hopes of maybe getting a little gaming action. Why now? Simple: upcoming games look appealing, for the first time in years. The news of the new Mechwarrior game coming out is wonderful and adds to that appeal. But I have not seen anything released in the last year or two whcih even remotely appeals to me.
Oh yeah, it's also summertime, during a depression. I wonder if that has anything to do with a precipitous drop in sales?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
My problem with Steam is that obnoxious client of theirs starting every time I boot to Windows, putting itself in my toolbar, putting up a Window with spam and minimizing any other game I might have started running before it finished its minute of startup BS. I like the Steam concept but their execution of their client is AWFUL. Anyone know how to make it not run until and unless I actually want to run one of their games?
To be honest their client feels so much like spyware and spam I've put a moratorium on buying any more games there until they either fix their client or I figure out how to shut it off except when I want it to run.
@de_machina
I bet it was an EA game, wasn't it? ^^
Quick! Flush it, before it starts to stink!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Are you running a recent version of your steam client? I'm trying to figure out how to enable the "start steam at boot" feature. Its probably under "options". If you play online multiplayer games (particulalry the same 5-10 servers) you will probably find its more useful to leave it on than try and turn it off. Its replaced AIM and gchat as my primary IM client for me and my gaming buddies - being able to join their server/game right from the chat window is invaluable IMO
moox. for a new generation.
That games went up in price as people upgraded consoles, I know im buying all my games used now. Content has dropped off in quantity as they hope the sequal may make more cash and the sameness of titles is starting to make them all be equally less attractive.
This is likely the nail in the coffin. After the PS2 and Xbox were released, PC games were almost released as an afterthought, and a great many games were "ported" over to the PC, usually lame translations. I used to thank the day M$ became the giant in the playground so I didn't have to bemoan the fact that a fun-looking game was released for Amiga or Atari, and not for my platform. Nowadays I really want PC gaming to return with a vengeance, as most PS games bore me (the ones I've played can't keep my attention long enough to justify even a rental) and PC is still my platform of choice for games. Yeah, just try and mod Morrowind on an Xbox! This slump in sales, I fear, will be the catalyst for making even fewer PC games than we do already, and most of the developer dollars will be thrown towards a console that I do not own or intend to own.
Are you running a recent version of your steam client? I'm trying to figure out how to enable the "start steam at boot" feature.
Look under File menu -> Settings -> Interface tab. The "Run Steam when Windows starts" checkbox is there right under the skin selection dropdown box.
Great way to trade games on the internet.
June was a dry month for video gaming. Not many good games were released (except for Infamous).
I own a Wii because I have a family and thought it would be the most family friendly game console (I think I was right).
That being said, I've been wanting adult games for the Wii badly (for myself), and I'm not talking about games that have been ported to the Wii as an afterthought. In June, The Conduit came out, and I'm really, really enjoying it. The controls are surprisingly good, and you're hearing this from a mouse/keyboard fanatic!
The Conduit was written specifically for the Wii and the Wii controller and it shows. It's a very good game. Highly recommended.
There are so many factors here, the recession being the biggie, but it amplifies everything else. Crappy over priced games are something that sell much worse when you don't have disposable income. Expensive consoles stop selling, not to mention a huge percentage of the market owns a "next gen" console by now. (I know, it's not "next gen" anymore, get over it) Those that don't own one probably have at least one friend with each of the big 3. So you'll get more of the old-school game sharing like before this newfangled internet thing came along and made it so you no longer have to be in the same room as the people you are playing with (as long as you and all your friends go buy a console and a copy of the game each). And then there's used games...
So we're told music and movies (and PC games at the least) don't sell because of piracy, and the PSP is dying because of piracy (oh no, not bad design, poor media choices, iffy game selection, etc. etc., but piracy) etc. etc. Many of the game companies can't get away w/ the same song and dance for Wii/360/PS3 games as they're not pirated on nearly the same scale (maybe 360 games, but AFAIK they can't go on xbox live or they get flagged or something) and take more doing than just downloading a CD patch or key-gen. Enter the new scapegoat; USED GAMES! Of COURSE no one will pay $60-70 (I'm in Canada) for a new game when in a couple weeks it'll be half price (Except for Fallout 3... WTF?!?), esp during the aforementioned recession. What's the solution? Make games that play for longer, with more re-play value so people don't want to sell them the moment they finish them? No, let's just talk about it like it's akin to stealing. Yeehaw!
When did whinning until someone passed a law for you to block competition or handed you a "bailout" become the way to do business? What ever happened to succeeding (or failing) on the merrets of your product/service?
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
People love to complain about all the things big companies are doing wrong - short gameplay, high prices, nasty DRM - and sure, these things suck, but there are plenty of people who DON'T do those things. Yet as long as the big companies make more money than the people trying different tactics, they're not likely to change.
I've gotcher 'Women In Gaming' RIGHT HERE!
I have hundreds, most of which are classics.
Imagine in just ten or twenty years the games you pay $60 a piece for will be bought by someone like me at Goodwill for $1.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
The answer is very simple. A lot of great games have come out recently and people are spending more time at work. This leads to a backlog of games waiting to be enjoyed. The game companies have realized this, so they held back on some of their releases.
The videogame world is not coming to an end. Game companies are not stupid.
Also, many posters are incorrectly assuming that the recession will negatively impact games. Many are also trying to link this to the "high" price of games. This is very wrong.
Games are cheap. They really are cheap. Spoiler alert: I'll repeat this one more time before this post is done. In terms of dollars per hour of entertainment it's hard to beat a video game. This makes games the cheaper, low class alternative to premium entertainment.
In a recession people flock to cheaper alternatives. The correct analogy is entertainment:food as videogame:fastfood. In a recession more people eat fast food, and more people buy video games. We saw exactly this behaviour when the recession hit.
I almost forgot. Games are cheap.
Have you even looked in the client?
Files\Settings\Interface\Run Steam when Windows starts
Remove the little checkmark, and that problem should be dealt with. :)
I think in the end, since videogames have substantial online components nowadays, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and the biggest game companies like EA and the Japanese game companies should do one very simple thing: create a true unified online access standard for multiplayer games that works regardless of platform.
Imagine a few years from now you're playing a future version of Madden NFL Football from EA Sports. With a unified online access system, you can create an online account with all your game settings that would work regardless of platform. That means when you create an online profile for Madden NFL on an XBox machine, you can go to a friend's house that has a PlayStation machine and log in to play the game with all your original game settings completely intact, or go to another friend's house to do exactly the same thing with a network-connected future Nintendo Wii variant, or even do it on a PC or Mac with the appropriate hardware/software and broadband Internet connection.
Obviously this big drop in sales has nothing to do with the fact relatively few games, and very few decent ones have been released recently. Nor could it possibly have anything to do with the global financial situation...
No, obviously PIRATES are to blame and as such we need stricter laws, tougher punishments and increasingly onerous drm schemes to ensure the video game industry fat cats can continue to enjoy unrealistically high profit margins.
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