Gaming Sales Down 24% in September

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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We all know the U.S. economy is in pretty bad shape and it’s looking like it may be affecting the video gaming world. Some companies reported sales remained high while others saw up to a 24% drop, including those on hardware sales and accessories according to a new report from NPD Group.

The hardware sector of the industry suffered through a similarly troubling period as sales slumped 39 percent year-over-year to end the month at $210.9 million.
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OMG ... you mean that 6 year old gaming hardware isn't selling in a down economy ... the Horror ;)
 
Didn't gearbox say that Borderlands 2 outsold Borderlands 1 by wide margin at this point?
 
Clearly the solution to this problem is to reelect the Obama Administration. Their economic recovery plans have been both inexpensive and rapid... oh wait.
 
Elios said:
that accounting for digital sales? im betting not
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Nope, and not even all retail sales, or most online hard copy sales are counted. Headline should read, "Game Sales Down By As Much As 24% At The Large Retail Chain Stores!"

I seriously wish that NPD numbers would just go away when it comes to game sales. For consoles, currently, NPD numbers are only reliable as an indicator of the spending habits of people that buy at the large retail chains. An important metric no doubt, but only a part of a much larger picture. Many console games are even DD now, and a great many are purchased on line, and have been for the last few years. It's like reviewing the DLC, bu not bothering with the actual game.

For the PC? For get it, NPD numbers are less than useless, since most of the people that report to them, mostly sell hard copy PC games off a tiny shelf or stand at this point.
 
Ducman69 said:
Clearly the solution to this problem is to reelect the Obama Administration. Their economic recovery plans have been both inexpensive and rapid... oh wait.
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Yes, let's elect Romney so he can finish outsourcing the rest of the country before selling it off for a profit!

Then we can all sit at home and play video games.
 
Negative Decibel said:
I'm sure if steam were included; sales would be up...
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I doubt it. My backlog has gotten absurd and I just don't buy hardly anymore. Only thing I might buy is a very cheap indie-like game which is all I seem to have time for anyway and I'm just about backlogged out on those.
 
There really hasn't been anything released lately has there? I know Borderlands 2 came out but that's all I can think of. I've been replaying Mass Effect 3 and Batman AC lately and waiting for something that looks good to come along but nothing really has. I think that's more of a problem than a down economy - nothing worth buying right now.

Same with hardware. My nearly 4 year old 5870 is playing everything at max settings (except BF3 which has to be on High). I mean I would love to buy a GTX670 or 7970 but since I don't "need" it, I save my money.
 
jpm100 said:
I doubt it. My backlog has gotten absurd and I just don't buy hardly anymore. Only thing I might buy is a very cheap indie-like game which is all I seem to have time for anyway and I'm just about backlogged out on those.
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There are so many good games to play that people have stopped buying games? Is that your argument?
 
the world economy is shit, but people are still buying their ipads and iphones and playing angry birds
 
No digital sales = pointless study. It would be like ignoring digital sales in a music sales analysis. At this point there are so many digital platforms that each carry millions of clients. Ignoring them is done only to inflate the perceived necessity of physical retail stores in an era that is increasingly digital in entertainment consumption.
 
It's got a lot to do with a simple societal shift to different forms of entertainment. As the television generation dies off and takes aging console playing wrinkle-butts along to fill assisted living communities, younger people who entertain themselves with mobile phones or older people able to keep up with those trends are electing to spend their money elsewhere. Also, with social networking promoting social activities between older parents and a few late adopters in their 20's, they're back to going out more instead of staring at a boring old screen. It's probably a good thing this is happening. As a society, we're getting really fat and lazy.
 
SkribbelKat said:
It's got a lot to do with a simple societal shift to different forms of entertainment. As the television generation dies off and takes aging console playing wrinkle-butts along to fill assisted living communities, younger people who entertain themselves with mobile phones or older people able to keep up with those trends are electing to spend their money elsewhere. Also, with social networking promoting social activities between older parents and a few late adopters in their 20's, they're back to going out more instead of staring at a boring old screen. It's probably a good thing this is happening. As a society, we're getting really fat and lazy.
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I'm thinking it has less to do with what you said, and more to do with the economy. People aren't buying just anything anymore. They want their money's worth, and then some. Then there's the price of $60 a game. For a lot of games, that seems very high, and very few games deserve $60.

I seriously doubt people started using their smart phones as their primary gaming device. Maybe people are going out more often, but that maybe what people do when their broke. Especially when someone else is paying for the night out.
 
SkribbelKat said:
It's got a lot to do with a simple societal shift to different forms of entertainment. As the television generation dies off and takes aging console playing wrinkle-butts along to fill assisted living communities, younger people who entertain themselves with mobile phones or older people able to keep up with those trends are electing to spend their money elsewhere. Also, with social networking promoting social activities between older parents and a few late adopters in their 20's, they're back to going out more instead of staring at a boring old screen. It's probably a good thing this is happening. As a society, we're getting really fat and lazy.
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Or it's just that they aren't counting digital sales, which is 40-50% of the total now.
 
Except this article covers all sales of gaming items ... hardware and software ... there is definitely a shift towards digital media (for PCs) ... I don't think that shift exists at the same level for consoles ... the console hardware sales are probably down because of the economy and because there haven't been any new consoles in a long time ... once they release the next generation consoles I am sure their sales will recover some (even in the down economy) ;)
 
Pwoz said:
There are so many good games to play that people have stopped buying games? Is that your argument?
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I believe his argument is that because he is not buying games, no one else is either. Which makes perfect sense, unless you think about it.
 
Elios said:
that accounting for digital sales? im betting not
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This.

I don't even wanna see NPD numbers anymore UNLESS digital sales are included. I'm sick of seeing these articles without all the relevant information.
 
Pwoz said:
There are so many good games to play that people have stopped buying games? Is that your argument?
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Actually I think it's that people already have more games than they can play. I know my purchasing hit a peak a couple of years back and now I have more games than I have time to play so I buy less. Not saying that's what everyone else is doing, that's just me :D
 
I bought a Nexus 7 and haven't been buying pc games like I normally do.
 
BladeVenom said:
Console gaming is dying. While Steam continues to grow.
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Although I am a hardcore PC gamer (I haven't owned a console in a decade) Console gaming is on a downswing mostly because of where they are in the lifecycle of their products ... once they launch new consoles, especially with new whiz bang features they are likely to rebound ;)

As to Steam, the stat I would be interested in seeing is concerning whether PC gaming is actually growing or whether it is just moving from a physical distribution model to a digital distribution model (but with more or less the same level of consumption). There are lots of people joining the ranks of casual gaming (Facebook games, Web games, etc) but are FPS, RTS, RPG, MMO, and the like genres really growing (those are the hard core PC gaming genres) :cool:
 
Ashbringer said:
I seriously doubt people started using their smart phones as their primary gaming device. Maybe people are going out more often, but that maybe what people do when their broke. Especially when someone else is paying for the night out.
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I haven't had a smartphone in about a year and a half, but when I had an Android device, it easily took over for the little gaming that I did. Anyhow, getting other people to pay for your evening out is a great way to save some money as long as those people don't expect you to take them out later. :) Mooching is totally in these days.

Pwoz said:
Or it's just that they aren't counting digital sales, which is 40-50% of the total now.
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I'd believe that number for computers if it's number of sales rather than dollars sold since that'd account for lots of indie purchases and DLC, but big console titles ship on discs still and consoles account for tons more sales than the smaller niche that's PC gaming. Really, new generations of people are just not that into the stuff since it isn't really a novelty to them like it was for the aging population that was young when console systems first started becoming popular like thirty years ago.
 
Is this really recession driven though? I mean it's been five years and sales of games and hardware have remained steady.

I am more inclined to believe that you don't need new hardware when the new games run at 100FPS all ready. You are less likely to buy a new game when it's just a rehash of the older one.
 
Elios said:
that accounting for digital sales? im betting not
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18 months ago NPD reported it would include digital sales in its numbers.

You lose. Wanna double down on some 3 card monty? ;)
 
It could be all kinds of things. The current gen of consoles are getting old, fewer titles are being made due to developers going out of business, the bad economy/competition for limited entertainment dollars and just a general decline in gaming due to bargain basement $0.99 phone games and free to play online games.

tl;dr
It's probably real and probably bad news for the industry.
 
pxc said:
18 months ago NPD reported it would include digital sales in its numbers.

You lose. Wanna double down on some 3 card monty? ;)
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this is from the article,
NPD's data does not factor in digital sales -- a growing market segment -- or used and rental sales. If all of those sales are factored in, total consumer spending on games last month hit just less than $1.6 billion.
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Zepher said:
this is from the article,
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Aha. Thx for the correction.

It seems the digital sales are reported separately. I assumed the total would have included it. I should have clicked. ;)

Sales are still down nonetheless.
 
Steam does not report DD sales numbers at all, last I heard. The individual devs can, if they want. I have no idea which ones do, or how completely they report.

What's really hilarious is that NPD only just started counting Walmart retail game sales in May of 2012. How good can their numbers really be?
 
Same thing every year... Lull in sales early fall that ramps up as christmas gets closer.
 
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