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Industry Sales Plunge While Innovation Beckons
Game sales dropped nearly 9 percent in 2009 from the previous year, dipping to $20.2 billion from $22.11 billion, according to digital entertainment market researchers NPD Group. Then a stellar December – a record sales month, thanks to holiday spending – seemed to be a sign that things were rebounding quickly.
They weren’t.
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NPD Sizes Up Digital Distribution Market
While the industry-tracking NPD Group keeps close tabs on US retail sales in the game industry, it has for years struggled with quantifying the growing realm of digital distribution. Concrete information about the sales of digitally distributed titles is still the closely held secret of vendors like Steam, Xbox Live Marketplace, PlayStation Store, and the Wii Shop Channel, but the NPD Group is trying to find another way to gauge the market’s size.
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As Video Game Sales Lag, Heads Begin to Roll
Sales may not be dire. But already, some heads are rolling. Atari announced today that it replaced chief executive David Gardner with his No. 2 executive, Jeff Lapin. Atari has had a rocky time, but it is preparing for a big launch in January of its Star Trek Online property, being developed by Cryptic Studios. In this survival of the fittest environment, layoffs are hitting the weaker companies.
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Study: 20% of U.S. Game Spending Devoted To MMOs, Portals
Twenty percent of total video game spending in the U.S. goes toward MMOs and game portals, primarily for monthly subscriptions and online credits, according to a new international study. Home and handheld consoles comprise 57 percent of the nation’s gaming budget, including second-hand trade and digital distribution sales.
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New Challenges for Nintendo
The Nintendo Wii, the motion-control darling of the video game console world, faces new challenges and questions about its future like never before.
The question is whether the Wii can maintain its market lead or if it will fall back into the ranks of more traditional game systems, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3.
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Call of Duty Franchise Sells More than $3 Billion
Activision Blizzard Inc. said on Friday its “Call of Duty” video game franchise pushed past the $3 billion mark in global retail sales. Overall, the “Call of Duty” series has sold more than 55 million units since its launch in 2003.
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Funcom Looks Forward To Secret World Amid Q3 Losses
Funcom said Tuesday its sales fell 68.5 percent during the fiscal third quarter, as earnings for the Age of Conan studio swung to a loss compared to the same quarter a year ago.
The Norwegian-headquartered company attributed the lower revenues to a tough comparison to Q3 2008, when the PC MMORPG Age of Conan launched. Age of Conan subscriptions are currently Funcom’s main source of revenue.
Funcom has also revealed the upcoming MMORPG The Secret World, which the studio claims is “tracking better than Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Aion and others at similar stage of development.” There are currently 90 people working on the project, Funcom said.
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NPD Group: Behind the Numbers, October 2009
Earlier this year conventional wisdom held that the video game industry would make a dramatic turnaround in the back half of 2009. However when the NPD Group released October 2009 retail sales data last week, the dire reality of the market was plain for all to see.
In every segment of the market – hardware, software, and accessories – the revenues were down significantly, and the overall total was down 19% relative to October 2008.
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Despite Sales Slip, Nintendo Predicts Strong Season
Although October sales of Nintendo’s Wii console dropped 36 percent compared with the same period last year, company executives expect robust sales in the holiday season.
“We’ll have a very strong November and December,” Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s president, predicted.
Mr. Fils-Aime said in a telephone interview that Wii sales are in line with expectations at this point in the product’s life cycle.
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How iPhone Apps are Raking in Cash from Virtual Goods
The red-hot virtual goods market is working its way onto Apple’s iPhone app platform, as developers hope to cash in on the iPhone’s relatively new support for in-app payments. Prime example: The new, free game “Eliminate Pro” from Ngmoco, the iPhone gaming firm founded by ex-Electronics Arts star Neil Young.
Eliminate is a free app to download. Therefore, 100% of its revenue is generated by in-app purchasing of virtual goods.