Hi! Welcome to the video game industry thread. Here we discuss things like sales figures, game development, studio closures, executive quotes, marketing and general business stuff. Also poop jokes. And frequent references to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMSHvgaUWc8IMPORTANT GUIDE TO DELVING INTO THE WORLD OF VIDJA GAME SALES WITHOUT HAVING A RAGE CORONARY
1. Quality =/= sales. Sometimes awful games sell tremendously well. Sometimes fantastic games sell horribly. Sure, quality can have an impact on game sales, but there's loads of other factors that can affect sales, like whether it has broad or niche appeal, marketing, production, system install base, competition, etc. etc. So when someone says "I don't think Game X will sell well," he's not necessarily saying "I think Game X will suck."
2. The overall game market ain't us. Remember, you're posting on a forum on a video game enthusiast website, so most of the posters tend to have (for lack of a better word) hardcore and/or niche interests. But the hardcore tend to be a fairly small element of the overall market. If we were, stuff like the Wii, Facebook games, etc. wouldn't have sold nearly as well as they did. So don't necessarily assume that, say, no one will willingly pay money for a Zumba game simply because you personally don't like Zumba.
3. The bar for success varies from game to game. Catherine sold 200,000 copies its first month, and it's considered a wild success. Battlefield 3 has sold 13 million, yet it's considered a bit of a disappointment. What gives? Loads of things can affect the terms of success for a game -- the game's development and marketing budgets, the size of its print run, whether its appeal is broad or niche, the expectations of the company, etc. In the case of Catherine, it was a ridiculously niche anime relationship block puzzler released by Atlus, a company that specializes in releasing extremely niche games that don't sell in great numbers. Battlefield 3, on the other hand, had a gigantic budget and EA expected it to outsell the latest Call of Duty.
4. Don't cite VGchartz. Ever. Pretty much everyone in this thread would love for a comprehensive sales stats site to exist, but this one isn't reliable. Not only do they make shit up (by their own admission), they usually get it wrong. Sometimes extremely wrong. VGchartz made a big deal about how Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was a huge bomb that only sold 100,000 in its first month for example, but then it turned out to have sold 600,000 copies. Woops. If you'd like more information about why they aren't reliable, go
here.
And now, March's NPD numbers.
NPD Group's U.S. Games Industry Sales (New Physical Sales Channel*) - March 2012
5-week month; March Reporting Period 2/26/12 through 3/31/12
Overall Retail Industry:
Down 25% year over year.
Software:
01. Mass Effect 3 (360, PS3, PC)** Electronic Arts - 1.18 Million excluding PC, 4:1 Xbox:PS3, over double ME2's opening
02. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (360, PS3)** Capcom USA - 582K
03. MLB 12: The Show (PS3, PSV) Sony (Corp)
04. NBA 2K12 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PC, PS2) Take 2 Interactive
05. SSX 2012 (360, PS3) Electronic Arts
06. Street Fighter X Tekken (PS3, 360)** Capcom USA
07. Mario Party 9 (Wii) Nintendo - 230K
08. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (360, PS3, Wii, PC)** Activision Blizzard
09. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja (360, PS3) Namco Bandai Games
10. Major League Baseball 2K12 (360, PS3, Wii, NDS, PSP, PC, PS2) Take 2 Interactive
**(includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc. but not those bundled with hardware)
Other Software:
XX. Kid Icarus - 135K
XX. Super Mario 3D Land - 100K
XX. Mario Kart 7 - 118K
Lifetime:
SM3DLand: 1.98 Million
MK7: 1.58 Million
Hardware:
Xbox 360 - 371K (-14.3%)
PlayStation 3 - 337K (-7.7%) [PR Math]
Nintendo 3DS - 225K (-43.8%)
Nintendo Wii - 175K (-39.7%)
Posts
http://kotaku.com/5896996/the-next-playstation-is-called-orbis-sources-say-here-are-the-details
Long story short, the PS4 is allegedly coming in 2013 and will make it either impossible or more difficult to buy used.
Also; next-gen is already here.
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Trailer is seriously hilarious bad VAing, article is posted as proof of 3DS downloadable retail games in the year of our lord Iwata 2012.
An unfortunate malady that doctors have dubbed "Chun Li Syndrome."
No it's not.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-03-27-pre-owned-increases-cost-of-games-cannibalizes-industry-says-dyack
Have the Car industry been fatally wounded because of used car dealers? Have movie studios closed down due to Redbox/Netflix? Has Levis died due to Goodwill?
This is just stupid talk.
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Oh shit the game was cancelled. Boooo.
As for movies, they have other revenue streams - theater sales, television rights, etc. Now, I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with the 'used games will destroy the industry' side of things - but it's not really accurate to say 'well movies and cars have survived with a used market'. Particularly since, with movies, there's really nothing on the scale of Gamestop, nor is there nearly the push that you're seeing even in other big box retailers to capitalize on the market. It's a different situation entirely.
You might think it's an easy thing to answer, but considering the article consists of three long pages, it's not.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/167392/sad_but_true_we_cant_prove_when_.php
Don't... just don't do a car analogy. It doesn't work here at all.
Cars are objects. Machines. They have produce in them. Seats and wheels and big chunks of metal. Leather and wiring and a big plastic dashboard.
Games are ideas. Their delivery mechanism can vary, from CDs to just numbers down a telephone line. But games are ideas.
Ideas can be copied. Ideas can be consumed only once by each person. Ideas can also be shared.
Once Toyota sells a car, it makes another car. Almost exactly the same. It has an incremental development of the car. Last year's Corolla is fundamentally no different than this year's. It is still a box that moves you to places while sitting down.
The differences between the Ford Model T and this years Yaris are much smaller like-for-like than the difference between a generational gap in games.
When Toyota wants to design a new car, it doesn't have to build from scratch the tools to design the car. It doesn't have to invent the car in the first place, either.
It's perfectly reasonable for game developers to be more annoyed at used game sales because used game sales are having a much more fundamental and more harmful effect on the games industry than used cars are on the car industry.
I guess we should also skip the part about bloated game budgets as everybody tries to make AAA high-budget titles.
Also, what about the growth of DD sales? Dyack is talking like this "tail" trait has disappeared; how about all these 5/10/15/20 year old games that keep selling because they're one DD services for good prices? It's not the market's fault if people refuse to take advantage of existing services and apply common sense to selling their product.
Not only does Nintendo disprove this, but Blizzard is still enjoying long tails on their games.
Twitter
Movies definitely have more chances to recoup their investment - they have theatrical release, payperview, DVD/BluRay, pay cable, streaming to Netflix, basic cable, and then if they want deluxe DVD. With that said, you never are asked to make such a large, one time commitment to a movie as you are with a game. If I go to the theater and hate it, I'm out $8. If I buy it on BluRay I might be out $25 (and I can resell it for a few bucks). If I buy Skyrim and hate it, I'd be out $60 so I think the customer is justified feeling resale should be part of that deal.
I think the game industry really does have a shot to increase that if they wanted. DLC already gives them a 2nd chance to get some money back from a game. On top of that, you have the inevitable drop to $20/30 or the Game of Year edition to let you get a 2nd wind from a game. If they would advertise more heavily they could even make the game hitting direct download a big event and get some cash there by making that as cheap as a used copy. Dead Rising even managed to make money off a mini "prequel" for $5 before the game even hit and it was crazy fun to boot.
Instead of restricting one market (used) they should be finding new markets much like movies did.
The game industry is hurting because of the early rush to push HD and getting the best graphics out there. It's hurting because big name companies oversaturate the market with sequel after sequel.
It is hurt because big companies have created a hostile environment where smaller companies that used to be able to produce new and interesting ideas can no longer due so and keep their doors open. Because a grading system has become so important to publishers that if the score isn't to their liking they cut salaries and jobs and bonuses and entire development teams.
Because companies force developers to push a game out regardless of its quality. Because companies like Rovio have put it in the general populous' mind that 99 cents is the expected price of a video game.
Used game sales don't help, but it is by far the smallest part of why the industry is hurting right now. If it was, the industry would have been in trouble years ago.
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Ah well, I think Dyack is kind of a hack anyway. Not Molyneux levels of hack-ness, but still more bluster than substance.
But I also just want to remind everyone that Silicon Knights developed X-Men: Destiny.
Let's all take a moment, and let that sink in, while we consider just how much we give a shit about anything Dyack says.
Cars and jeans are degrading assets, and thus don't even compare to games. Movies is a slightly more apt description, but still not a perfect analog.
Not saying I completely agree with Dyack, but trying to compare used games to used cars is always a red herring. Cars degrade, games don't.
You keep mentioning DD games. Which can't be resold or bought used.
think about that.
DD games are also mostly on the PC, where the used market more or less doesn't exist.
Also, I don't think Dyack is relevant anymore. His studio doesnt make real games anymore or games that people want to play. I wouldn't listen to the Imagine Baby studio lead so why listen to Dyack?
No, but the car industry doesn't have artificially low and market harming prices either.
It's the used _anything_ industry. Games and Music tend to be the only markets that want to stand out in regards to used sales. Other industries adapt. Entertainment should adapt as well instead of destroying the idea of right to ownership.
My point is that when a person buys a physical item, it is then their right to sell it. Game companies are not so unique that they suddenly should be able to tell us that we can't. Problem is that they are going to try and do that, and it sucks. Buying/selling/trading used items has been a given constant of how owned goods worked since the first person invented the garage sale.
Edit: Sheep explained my point excellently.
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DD games also don't take up retail space. There is a point where even if a game has a "tail" it doesn't matter because Walmart/Target/etc simply don't want half their shelves taken up by old games that are selling 2 copies a week when they could be full of games from this month selling daily.
Right. If you want to get rid of used game sales there's already an easy answer - release on DD only.
Just checked my Steam stats and it looks like we made about 2/3rds of our LTD from the first 3 months after launch. Not too bad; we've only been on Steam for about 8 months.
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That doesn't completely invalidate the idea that used game sales is fundamentally different than used car sales, for a lot of reasons. I'm not saying the industry should be pushing so hard to get rid of them (because lulz right of ownership), but at the same time, I think we need to recognize that selling a non-degrading asset is fundamentally different than selling a degrading one.
e: Arg, speaking of, I keep meaning to buy the CTSW/BoD7 pack on Steam, despite owning both games on XBLA already, just to support.
its growing incredibly quickly
more and more money is spent on it every year
?
Yet game studios are closing faster than Hillary Clinton's legs. The industry "as a whole" may be growing in dollars spent, but that money is not always in the right places.
i mean i feel like "the industry is hurting" is what you say when the whole industry is quietly dying, whereas this is more "developers and publishers be having fucked up relationships fuck da ea police yo"
And yes, the publisher/developer relationship is fucked up. Stockholm syndrome levels of fucked up.
and no perma-crunch time
Rayman Origins might have benefited from a DD approach. I'd be happy with a smaller budget DD Beyond Good & Evil 2 - that way it would have a better chance of success, just use the engine from BG&E HD. Bizarre might still be around if Blur had been scaled to be a DD game.
This is what's happening.
Money is being spent, yet the overinflated budgets and other factors I mentioned in the earlier post have made it where most companies cannot survive in the current environment.
Now on the other side of the coin, even though I'm not a huge Digital gaming guy, Steam/XBLA/PSN/WiiWare have given indie devs a chance to make something unique and new again, and there have been some great successes in this area. It's a small glimmer of hope in a hurting industry.
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