MCVUK reports that North American Game analyst the NPD Group has confirmed that gamers still prefer hard copies of titles rather than digitally distributed versions, with the Group asserting that 58% of gamers have never downloaded a game.
Business, Casual Games, Game Design
Alright, people… it’s time to face reality. C’mon, don’t look at me like that. We’ve all had to do it hundreds of times before (though in my case, it’s usually because the power’s out.)
This time around, however, I mean facing reality in a broader sense than simply turning off your console of choice. Despite our collective hopes and dreams, it now appears video games don’t exist in some mythical fantasy land untouched by the recession. (Granted World of Warcraft still takes plays in a mythical fantasy land, but just the regular kind.)
There are dark days ahead for video game retailers. Wal-Mart’s holiday sales fell short of expectations, but at least they hung on to post a 1.6% gain on last year’s December numbers. Best Buy watched its Entertainment Software (including our pride and joy, video games) sales decline by 12.2%. With the worst holiday shopping season since 1970 behind us, how did GameStop, the world’s largest video game and entertainment software retailer, manage a 22.3% increase over last year’s sales?
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On January 7th, the NPD Group revealed that more kids aged 9 to 14 are obtaining their entertainment content digitally. The information comes from a report titled Kids & Digital Content III, with the study primarily looking at how digital content is used by kids aged 2 to 14. What does this study mean for gaming?
Casual Games, Gamer Culture, Headlines, PC
Phantom Entertainment recently launched a new online PC game store, trying their hand in the increasing popular enterprise that is digital distribution, joining other video game web distribution sites such as Steam, Impulse, Direct2Drive.
Last Saturday, John Diamonon of Capcom posted in his PlayStation blog that Capcom is hard at work to become the #1 digital publisher on the PlayStation Network. After seeing much success in 2008 (thanks to hits like Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix), Capcom and SCEA are forming a plan to make more downloadable content available through PSN in the future.
Business, Game Design, Headlines, Interviews
With the American economy’s schizophrenic behavior over the past few months, gamers have been doing whatever they can to cut the costs for new games. One of the easiest ways to shave off a few dollars is, of course, buying a used game from places like GameStop or eBay. The unfortunate part about doing this, however, is that the game developers make no money when their products are bought second hand. Now that used game sales are more profitable than ever (used games made up 49% of GameStop’s $1.8 billion in sales during 2008’s first quarter), members of the industry are speaking out against skimping on retail game purchases.
