Game Sales | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Thu, 02 Nov 2017 14:20:56 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Game Sales | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 UK console game sales show digital on a sharp rise https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/uk-console-game-sales-show-digital-on-a-sharp-rise/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/uk-console-game-sales-show-digital-on-a-sharp-rise/#respond Thu, 02 Nov 2017 14:20:56 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=352894 While PC gamers primarily shifted over to digital downloads years ago, things have been a bit slower on the console side of things. Last year, up to 25 percent of console game sales in the UK were digital, but this year we have seen a bigger shift, with some Triple A games exceeding 45 percent. …

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While PC gamers primarily shifted over to digital downloads years ago, things have been a bit slower on the console side of things. Last year, up to 25 percent of console game sales in the UK were digital, but this year we have seen a bigger shift, with some Triple A games exceeding 45 percent.

According to data shown to gamesindustry.biz, the digital to physical split for UK console game sales is now sitting between 30 to 45 percent, with some games even exceeding that.

Image Credit: Xbox/Microsoft

As the report notes, this year, GFK data, which only counts physical game sales, has shown that some of this year’s releases have sold below their predecessors. Examples include Destiny 2, Assassin’s Creed Origins and FIFA 18. However, overall, these games have actually sold higher than their predecessors, with digital game sales making up for the gap.

According to one publisher speaking with the site, UK retailers have been discounting physical copies less this year. With that in mind, it seems that many consumers have decided that the convenience of digital games outweighs the smaller reduction in cost when buying a disc.

This could change as we head deeper into the holiday season. After all, we still have major releases like Call of Duty: WWII and Star Wars Battlefront II to look forward to. However, it does seem clear that more consumers are shifting to digital, even on consoles, despite the slight price premium.

KitGuru Says: I’m the type of person who has a few games on the go at once, rather than sitting down and focussing on one release at a time. With that in mind, being able to switch games at will on a console with a couple of button presses is very appealing. It seems that many console gamers are picking up on this as well, which could mean trouble for physical game stores, unless more discounts are put in place. Do any of you game on a console often? Do you primarily buy digital or physical copies?

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Indie dev hails the bursting of the indie bubble https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jon-martindale/indie-dev-hails-the-bursting-of-the-indie-bubble/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jon-martindale/indie-dev-hails-the-bursting-of-the-indie-bubble/#comments Fri, 23 May 2014 13:30:59 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=194866 Do you think there's too many indie games out there to really find diamonds among the rough? Does it seem like too much work and you ultimately find yourself sticking with established names or those that do well in reviews? You're not the only one. Jeff Vogel, developer of several RPGs and head of Spiderweb …

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Do you think there's too many indie games out there to really find diamonds among the rough? Does it seem like too much work and you ultimately find yourself sticking with established names or those that do well in reviews? You're not the only one. Jeff Vogel, developer of several RPGs and head of Spiderweb Software, has said he believes the indie bubble is about to burst and it's going to be tragic.

In the wake of Minecraft and Braid he said, so many developers realised they could go it alone and be profitable and many of them have been. The problem, he reckons, is that there's just too many of them now: how do you separate the wheat from the chaff?

“This wouldn't be a problem if there were a demand, but there's not,” he continues. “After all, almost 40% of games bought on Steam don't get tried.” He has a point too. If any of us look at our Steam Library, there's no doubt tens or maybe even hundreds of games we've never played, especially if you factor in those bought in bundles.

It's those bundles that Vogel also thinks are problematic. Just look at Humble Bundle. It went from showing up with something new once a month, to every week, to recently, it's offering bundles of games every single day for two weeks. That's tens of new games that chances are, won't be played – for the most part, and nobody is buying them.

humblebundle
The major downside of a daily bundle, is no one seems to care. This one has 6 hours to go and it's made almost nothing

” The problem is that a business based on selling things people don't want is not a stable one,” Vogel continued. This is leading to Steam trying to remove itself from the vetting procedure, but this means that without a curator of content, only those with marketing budgets are going to get noticed (read: not indie developers).

“Indie gaming started out as games written with passion for people who embraced and loved them. Now too much of it is about churning out giant mounds of decent but undifferentiated product to be bought for pennies by people who don't give a crap either way.”

So what's the result of all this? The middle ground developers go away. The super small ones, the indies with one, maybe two people working on their games, can survive, because they only need a couple of thousand sales and they're making enough to live on. But those with 10 people working on the games? That's much harder to sustain.

It's not Steam's fault though. Vogel believes it loves games, bitterly and deeply, but there's no way the people who love games want to decide who lives and dies by who it promotes, so it's getting out of dodge and trying to make a survival of the fittest environment, and who can blame it.

“Steam found themselves in a position of being hated for something it could do nothing about. Not to mention the fact that the sort of curation they were doing was impossible in the long term. You shouldn't want the games you can buy to be controlled by some guy at a stand-up desk in Bellevue, WA. They aren't wizards. They can't tell what's going to be a hit any more than anyone else. The free market has to do that job.”

KitGuru Says: Do you guys think the industry is heading for a bit of a collapse? If so, who will survive on the other site of it?

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Twitch now funding projects, selling games https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jon-martindale/twitch-now-funding-projects-selling-games/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jon-martindale/twitch-now-funding-projects-selling-games/#respond Thu, 17 Apr 2014 07:54:01 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=187801 Twitch might have solidified itself as a solid way for pro-gamers to make money, by simply streaming their practice sessions, but the service itself is looking to diversify its income beyond advertising. It's now begun selling games and is looking to help fund future projects. Indie title Nuclear Throne is its first foray into game …

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Twitch might have solidified itself as a solid way for pro-gamers to make money, by simply streaming their practice sessions, but the service itself is looking to diversify its income beyond advertising. It's now begun selling games and is looking to help fund future projects.

nuclearthrone

Indie title Nuclear Throne is its first foray into game sales, with Twitch offering the game as part of a subscription to the developer's Twitch channel, where they show you what it's like developing the game and give you tips on how to make games yourself. With that in mind, it's understandable why Twitch would want to support the game and it's certainly been given a big leg up in terms of promotion when you consider the size of the audiences Twitch reaches.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9stfIORSX7U']

But Twitch hasn't stopped there, it's also funding projects now too – though funnily enough, the first one is related to the streaming firm too. Choice Chamber is an adventure title that plans to use player interaction through Twitch, to advance the story via voting. It needed $30,000 to be funded and didn't look set to make that target – that was until Twitch stepped in and covered the rest of it, around $15,000.

“The Twitch community has already shown extraordinary enthusiasm for interactive games using Twitch chat [and this is] an excellent example of how developers can embrace this next-generation concept, so we are helping support this evolution of gameplay experiences in the age of social video,” said Twitch director Brooke Van Dusen (via Kotaku).

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Twitch is perfectly placed to be a promo company. All it does all day is showcase content, selling it too is a no brainer. 

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GSP Indie dev on why game sales are bad https://www.kitguru.net/professional/development/jon-martindale/gsp-indie-dev-on-why-game-sales-are-bad/ https://www.kitguru.net/professional/development/jon-martindale/gsp-indie-dev-on-why-game-sales-are-bad/#respond Fri, 21 Mar 2014 08:45:53 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=183624 Cliffski, no not Cliffy B, Cliffski, Cliff Harris, developer of Gratuitous Space Battles, the Democracy series and Redshirt among others, has taken the bold stance of attacking the practice of revolving Steam Sales and Humble Bundles, suggesting that it's creating a dangerous climate where games and developers are undervalued and underplayed. This is an interesting …

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Cliffski, no not Cliffy B, Cliffski, Cliff Harris, developer of Gratuitous Space Battles, the Democracy series and Redshirt among others, has taken the bold stance of attacking the practice of revolving Steam Sales and Humble Bundles, suggesting that it's creating a dangerous climate where games and developers are undervalued and underplayed.

This is an interesting position, especially for an indie developer. Humble Bundle was originally conceived as the Humble Indie Bundle, a way for smaller developers to band together to generate more income from their titles by sharing the spotlight and some of the proceeds with charity, but the climate has changed since then, and Mr Harris doesn't believe that it's heading in a direction that benefits anyone.

Firstly, he says, in the blog post titled, “We need to talk about unplayed games,” is that these sales are killing off game launches. “That thing where everyone plays the latest game doesn’t happen so much now. The game is ignored until the first 50% or 75% off sale,” he said. This ends up meaning multiplayer games are launching without adequate player bases and patching and updates are hard without a decent revenue stream for the few months after launch.

cliffski
Just look at the size of the man's hourglass. He must know what he's talking about. 

He also said, that because so many people are waiting for a big sale, games are being bought because they have a good logo or screenshot and a heavily reduced price. This rewards marketing over gameplay, which is dangerous. Similarly, when being in a Humble Bundle alone makes you a decent living, then just getting your game on there becomes the goal, rather than making a game that will sell because it's good.

“We expect games to be $5,” he said. “We don’t ‘invest’ money in them, so we give up and discard them at the first time we lose, or when we get confused or stuck. Some games are complex, tricky, hard to master, take a while to get to the point at which it all makes sense.” And this, he says, leaves us playing 10 per cent of the average game before moving on to the next one and Harris is as bad as anyone. There's not a single game in his collection that he's finished, he says. Developers know this too, which is why they're adding a lot of filler to games, to give you the idea of plenty of content, without ignoring the fact that most players won't ever get that far.

“I understand that varied price points to suit different gamers is good, I understand the reasons for sales being economically efficient ways to maximize global utility,” he said. “We are no longer selling products [though], we are selling discounts. The endorphin rush is now from getting a bargain, not the fun of actually *playing* the game. This is bad.”

KitGuru Says: The man has some interesting points and he's been developing long enough to see these trends in action. Looking at my own Steam collection, there are a few games I've finished and some of them recently, but there are a lot of unfinished games in there too. What about you guys? Do you find yourself sale hunting rather than playing good games over long periods?

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HMV to drop pre-owned game sales https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jon-martindale/hmv-to-drop-pre-owned-game-sales/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jon-martindale/hmv-to-drop-pre-owned-game-sales/#respond Mon, 10 Mar 2014 09:41:43 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=181304 One of the hottest points of contention between developers, gamers and store owners over the past few years, has been the sale of pre-owned games. Developers say they take money out of the industry, gamers say they allow them to buy new games since they know they can get trade-in value and stores are just …

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One of the hottest points of contention between developers, gamers and store owners over the past few years, has been the sale of pre-owned games. Developers say they take money out of the industry, gamers say they allow them to buy new games since they know they can get trade-in value and stores are just happy because they get to sell games several times over, but now HMV, one of the UK's longest standing game sales brands, is dropping the practice altogether.

hmv
It wasn't long ago HMV faced the closure of every division and product line. Source Gwidion Williams

While we've not had an official announcement or release from the chain or its management, Eurogamer did receive confirmation from several different sources, suggesting that HMV could well be getting out of the pre-owned game market. Whether that means it'll be focusing on new game sales, or moving away from games as a whole remains to be seen. If the latter is the case though, it may only be temporary, until the install base for the new consoles grows enough that sales of Xbox One and PS4 software make them viable stock for HMV, which isn't necessarily out of the financial woods yet.

KitGuru Says: The word is that any pre-owned stock at HMV is going to be heavily discounted, so make sure you go and check out what's on offer if you fancy some real bargains. 

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TV advertising significantly impacts game sales https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jules/tv-advertising-significantly-impacts-game-sales/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jules/tv-advertising-significantly-impacts-game-sales/#respond Mon, 06 May 2013 11:06:24 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=133911 For a lot of people out there, Dead Island won't mean anything. For the games industry though, its launch was one of the more protracted in the market. While not exactly in the same league as Duke Nukem, there was a definite 5 year gap between Dead Island's E3 announcement and the actual launch on …

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For a lot of people out there, Dead Island won't mean anything. For the games industry though, its launch was one of the more protracted in the market. While not exactly in the same league as Duke Nukem, there was a definite 5 year gap between Dead Island's E3 announcement and the actual launch on September 9 in 2011. The sequel has taken less time and done rather well so far. KitGuru swims ashore to see what's what.

The story line is totally original, in that you must survive on a zombie-infected island.

OK, it's not that original, but is fun and you can choose to play one of 4 characters fending off against the never ending onslaught of Infected, Walker, thug and Suicider etc zombies that want to serve up your virtual self between 2 slices of bread.

Alongside some interesting controversies (including the hilarious instruction by the ‘it is OK for kids to have guns' USA to change the logo, because a ‘hanging corpse' could be upsetting), there was also a novel to run alongside the game.

Another controversy came up when the developers inadvertently made pre-release code available on the web and eager gamers found derogatory references to a female character in the game, like ‘Feminist Whore'. Nice. Again, we wonder at a culture that thinks slicing up your enemy is cool, but name-calling is appalling.

So, enough background, let's return to the headline.

Dead-Island-Riptide-KitGuru

Publisher Deep Silver dropped a significant amount of cash into TV advertising for the sequel, Dead Island: Riptide – driven by TechLand's Chrome Engine 5. Polish game engines? Nice.

The result of that significant spend was a significant entry at Number One for the UK game charts. Overall, Dead Island: Riptide contributed to the last week of April enjoying an increase in sales revenue of almost 20% compared to the middle of the month.

Given the loss of the traditional high street methods of marketing, through Game and HMV etc, it must be a welcome relief for the industry to know that at least some media works.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DW-bjsvMJs']

KitGuru says: There is no doubt that a well placed advertising spend can make a huge difference to the launch of any product – whether that's hardware or software. The true test of a product comes in the following weeks. Can the island special hold on to the top spot once the pieces of TV eight run out?

Comment below, in the KitGuru forums or join us over on Facebook.

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Software sales drop 42 per cent in a week https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/harrison/software-sales-drop-42-per-cent-in-a-week/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/harrison/software-sales-drop-42-per-cent-in-a-week/#respond Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:47:44 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=131750 Driven by BioShock Infinite and Cadbury's Creme Eggs, retail game sales in the UK hit an annual high of more than £20m over Easter – only to see spending drop like a brick in the week that followed. KitGuru casts an eye over the runners and riders in the race for first software sales place. …

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Driven by BioShock Infinite and Cadbury's Creme Eggs, retail game sales in the UK hit an annual high of more than £20m over Easter – only to see spending drop like a brick in the week that followed. KitGuru casts an eye over the runners and riders in the race for first software sales place.

It's always going to be hard to compete in terms of software sales, when one of the biggest brands in the graphics card market starts to give your product away.

With a promotion to bundle the number one game, BioShock Infinite, alongside cards like Sapphire's multi-award winning Radeon HD 7790 – you can't expect millions of copies to fly off the shelf.

Then again, would you expect a drop in retail sales of 75% in one week?

Following hot on BioShock Infinite's heels (in the wrong direction) is Lara Croft's latest incarnation for the Tomb Raider series – which dropped 34% in a week.

With no major new launches schedules anytime soon, it's going to be a grim spring for stores that rely on gamers spending cash to boost their sprint-time coffers.

Maybe the 2,600 HMV employees that have been told they can keep their jobs – should not start celebrating too soon.

Lara-Croft-Tomb-Raider-over-the-years-KitGuru
.

KitGuru says: What message does it send to game developers, to know that the most popular – most money making Lara Croft was the original – and that years of development, refinement and additional pixel processing power has yet to yield a bigger return?

Comment below, in the KitGuru forums or join us over on Facebook.

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February game sales disappointing despite AAA releases https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jon-martindale/february-game-sales-disappointing-despite-aaa-releases/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jon-martindale/february-game-sales-disappointing-despite-aaa-releases/#comments Fri, 08 Mar 2013 11:03:02 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=127597 Video game sales last month were pretty disappointing according to new statistics, despite the fact that some giant AAA properties were launched in February, including: Aliens: Colonial Marines, Dead Space 3 and Crysis 3. Last month all British game stores sold a total of 1,854,954 games – representing a near 20 per cent drop from …

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Video game sales last month were pretty disappointing according to new statistics, despite the fact that some giant AAA properties were launched in February, including: Aliens: Colonial Marines, Dead Space 3 and Crysis 3.

Last month all British game stores sold a total of 1,854,954 games – representing a near 20 per cent drop from this time last year. You'd have thought that even with the bad press heaped on the new Aliens game, that Crysis 3, or Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance would pick up the slack. According to MCV, all the big AAA releases in February accounted for just 275,000 units.

Some of the downturn could also be put down to the beleaguered state of the high street retail business. HMV is in administration and GAME has a much smaller store footprint than it did last year. You could also point the finger at poor Wii U sales, which saw less than 100,000 sold throughout January, making for low sales of its compatible games.

Aliens
Aliens: Colonial Marines was the biggest disappointment of the year so far.

Moving forward, retailers will be looking to March's big name releases to turn the tide. There's Bioshock Infinite to get excited for, as well as strong early sales and review scores for Tomb Raider that could help things along. The EA Games' SimCity debacle won't have helped that game's sales, but Luigi's Mansion 2 on the DS might leave a mark.

KitGuru Says: Did you guys buy any games in February? I don't think I picked up anything. I'm playing the demo for Trackmania 2 Stadium right now. Full speed maps rule.

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UK digital games market is worth £500 million https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jon-martindale/uk-digital-games-market-is-worth-500-million/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/jon-martindale/uk-digital-games-market-is-worth-500-million/#respond Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:57:46 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=120939 While we might often seem to be writing sad stories here, about how the high street is dwindling, with hardware and gaming stores closing down all over the place, it is leading to better online sales. In 2011, the UK digital games market made over £500 million. This has come to light as part of …

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While we might often seem to be writing sad stories here, about how the high street is dwindling, with hardware and gaming stores closing down all over the place, it is leading to better online sales. In 2011, the UK digital games market made over £500 million.

This has come to light as part of a report on the digital sales industry in the UK by the Entertainment Retailers Association, which tallied up the total intake for movies, music and games and found that over a billion pounds was made by the three combined. Impressively, gaming made up over half of that figure – though admittedly a game is usually a bit more expensive than a either of the others.

FTL
If it wasn't for Faster Than Light eating up my gaming time, my contribution to digital sales would have been far higher

MCV has done some maths for us and pointed out that this huge figure represents a jump of over 11 per cent on the year before. On top of that, digital has now taken over a quarter of the entertainment media market.

“This reflects their huge investment in new and innovative services – which means you can buy music, video and games literally at any time of the day and wherever you are,” ERA director general Kim Bayley stated.

“At the same time I suspect that many people will be surprised to learn just how resilient the physical business still is, with three-quarters of entertainment sales still on disc.”

“Downloads offer convenience and portability, but people still seem to value the quality and tangibility of a physical product.”

KitGuru Says: It's a shame that this has to coincide with the decline in physical sales, but that's only because times are moving on. High streets are dying because we're moving on as consumers. Digital is the way forward and it seems like there's no stopping it now.

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