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Game Industry Data 2017 - Hardware #s, PC revenue, Digital vs Physical, F2P & more

L

Lime

Member
The EEDAR presentation at this year's GDC has been uploaded and made accessible to the public, so I thought some of the slides were worth a share, even though it's not including 2017 data. It includes data on hardware sales, digital vs physical, PC revenue divided by payment model, marketing budgets influencing sales, and market consolidation in terms of who in the industry is making the most money. I apologize for the screen captures.

Hardware sales per December 2016
platformsalesaks1k.png


(including tablet and phone sales)
mobileconsolesbfsw2.png


US Video game sales
usvideogamesalesets75.png
Click to expand...

Digital distribution and retail
Digital revenue vs physical revenue
digitalretailrevenuemasbz.png


digitalretailrevenue20csvc.png


Digital releases and physical releases
phsycaldigitalv5s4s.png


Physical and digital releases over time
phsycaldigital2lus6o.png


Retail game releases per year
gamereleases6yscz.png


Digital and physical game releases per year
gamereleasesdigitaliysx9.png
Click to expand...

Market consolidation
consolidations0sbr.png


consolidation2mksk2.png
Click to expand...

PC relevant statistics
PC Revenue by paying model
pcrevenuejvsj5.png


Amount of Steam games released per year
steamgames40sq2.png
Click to expand...

Marketing game quality
marketinggamequalitymksjm.png


marketinggamequality2jjsa5.png
Click to expand...

Review numbers over the years
review1svs86.png


review284scg.png


review35psw7.png
Click to expand...

See the presentation here: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1024054/Awesome-Video-Game-Data
 
StereoVsn

StereoVsn

Member
alr1ght said:
lol @ the number of Steam games release the last few years.
Click to expand...
Basically Steam discovery options are increasingly becoming useless although I have found some interesting games based on my Doscovey queue and Curator recommendations. Steam really needs to overhaul their recommendations, filtering, and so on.

At this time most of the games I get on Steam are fairly well known (for their niches), publishers I follow, or come from GAF/Web Publication recommendations.
 
M

Madao

Member
it's fun how the graph that includes phones makes even the top console shown look like a failure. even the PS2's number would be peanuts next to that.
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
Madao said:
it's fun how the graph that includes phones makes even the top console shown look like a failure. even the PS2's number would be peanuts next to that.
Click to expand...

It's a kind of pointless statistic because only a fraction of users will use their phones to play games, and of those a fraction still will actually spend any money on games.

It's like adding in PC sales on the same graph. It's not really meaningful and its not really tell us anything.

Also, like others have said, I have no idea what that "PC (Steam)" figure represents in the hardware sales category. It makes literally no sense.
 
P

patapuf

Member
9% of retail Titles account for 75% the spending.

When people ask why (big) publishers always go "bigger and more expensive" with their games this is the answer.

The physical + digital combined chart is pretty much identical.
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
steamgames40sq2.png
Click to expand...

Over 4500 games released on Steam in 2016.

Yeah, I'm surprised gamers can find anything in among all that shit flooding the store. Wow!

I haven't bought anything from Steam in a while, but the last time I did I knew what I wanted to buy and went to the store to purchase it. I reckon that's what most gamers are doing now, because natural discovery of games on the Steam has got to be impossible with so many games being released all the time.
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
patapuf said:
9% of retail Titles account for 75% the spending.

When people ask why (big) publishers always go "bigger and more expensive" with their games this is the answer.

The physical + digital combined chart is pretty much identical.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure games like GTA V are skewing that chart. The top 2-10% sell so much more than the competition that it's not even funny.

Also, if that same chart included DLC and micro-transaction revenues (through lootboxes and all that jazz) I'm fairly sure it would look considerably worse; with something like the top 2-5% accounting for 75+% of all sales revenues.
 
E

Elandyll

Banned
I am flabergasted by the (console only, thus not accounting for Steam) share of releases in # of units for digital vs retail only, when compared to revenue of physical vs digital.

Seems to indicate that on console too the online stores are flooded with titles that are either both phys/ retail but more and more digital only, but the actual sales in Revenue are hugely dominated by the retail $60 volumes of a few AAA titles.
 
P

patapuf

Member
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
I'm pretty sure games like GTA V are skewing that chart. The top 2-10% sell so much more than the competition that it's not even funny.

Also, if that same chart included DLC and micro-transaction revenues (through lootboxes and all that jazz) I'm fairly sure it would look considerably worse; with something like the top 2-5% accounting for 75+% of all sales revenues.
Click to expand...

That's my point though, If we are talking EA, Activision, Ubisoft, they fight for the 75%. They want (and have the rescources) to make a GTA.

They won't make a business model based on getting the scraps.
 
S

Sad Affleck

Member
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Over 4500 games released on Steam in 2016.

Yeah, I'm surprised gamers can find anything in among all that shit flooding the store. Wow!
Click to expand...

No-one has to wade through 'all that shit' to find games on Steam unless he is specifically looking for them, as Jim Sterling does. Developers of fake games should be dealt with but Steam has multiple options of highlighting quality games.
 
Stilton Disco

Stilton Disco

Member
Principate said:
That means Microsoft has been 2nd, 3rd, 2nd as far as console generations go. A victory but not much of one for the PS3.
Click to expand...

Given the current trajectory of the Switch's sales, I can't imagine it won't end up knocking the XO into 3rd place this gen too quite honestly.
 
S

Sad Affleck

Member
patapuf said:
That's my point though, If we are talking EA, Activision, Ubisoft, they fight for the 75%. They want (and have the rescources) to make a GTA.

They won't make a business model based on getting the scraps.
Click to expand...

Yeah, a handful of titles make all the money.
 
C

Celine

Member
Wonder if NPD got Vita LTD from Sony or if it's just a guess on their part.
Th rest seems shipment data (gave a quick glance).
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
Elandyll said:
I am flabergasted by the (console only, thus not accounting for Steam) share of releases in # of units for digital vs retail only, when compared to revenue of physical vs digital.

Seems to indicate that on console too the online stores are flooded with titles that are either both phys/ retail but more and more digital only, but the actual sales in Revenue are hugely dominated by the retail $60 volumes of a few AAA titles.
Click to expand...

This makes sense, as there are more and more digital only releases now than ever before. Just looking at the 4500+ games released in 2016 figure on Steam gives you an idea of the scale of digital releases now. Of course consoles will also get a fraction of those.

patapuf said:
That's my point though, If we are talking EA, Activision, Ubisoft, they fight for the 75%. They want (and have the rescources) to make a GTA.

They won't make a business model based on getting the scraps.
Click to expand...

Of course, I wasn't disagreeing with you. It's a pretty depressing reality.

Sad Affleck said:
No-one has to wade through 'all that shit' to find games on Steam unless he is specifically looking for them, as Jim Sterling does. Developers of fake games should be dealt with but Steam has multiple options of highlighting quality games.
Click to expand...

With 4500+ titles released on Steam in 2016, you absolutely cannot say this with a straight face. The cold hard facts fly in the face of your statement.

With so many games releasing on steam, a huge proportion HAVE to be shit, in which case you don't need to specifically look for the crap on Steam; rather the complete opposite is true. Unless you know what good games you're specifically looking for, you'll be wading through mountains of shit.

Sure Steam has some reasonable options for filtering and queuing curated content lists, but with the sheer number of crap games released on Steam, at some point the swathes of crap games will begin to overwhelm them too.

This issue to be pointed out here is, from a developer perspective, if you are a small indie with meager budget for marketing your game, how you get your game noticed on steam when it's simply 1 in 4500+ released in a single year on the platform.

Valve simply cannot deny that the game discovery problem on steam is a real problem.
 
D

Durante

Member
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Unless you know what good games you're specifically looking for, you'll be wading through mountains of shit.
Click to expand...
No, because Steam has a discovery queue and filtering options for that purpose (as you acknowledge).

The only time you see every single release is when you specifically elect to do so. And, well, if I do that then that is what I want.

TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
This issue to be pointed out here is, from a developer perspective, if you are a small indie with meager budget for marketing your game, how you get your game noticed on steam when it's simply 1 in 4500+ released in a single year on the platform.
Click to expand...
Well, yes, you need to create a game which is either excellent or has a unique appeal if you want a big hit. Or you need to plan for moderate sales.

That's just the sign of a mature medium.
 
S

Sad Affleck

Member
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
With 4500+ titles released on Steam in 2016, you absolutely cannot say this with a straight face. The cold hard facts fly in the face of your statement.

With so many games releasing on steam, a huge proportion HAVE to be shit, in which case you don't need to specifically look for the crap on Steam; rather the complete opposite is true. Unless you know what good games you're specifically looking for, you'll be wading through mountains of shit.
Click to expand...

I absolutely, positively, categorically can say this with a straight face. PC is my only gaming platform and Steam is my main digital delivery service. I buy quite a few games and I use the client every day. I have never even heard of all the games that Sterling routinely makes fun of. They never appeared on the front page featured titles, they never appeared in my curators list, they never appeared in any of the discovery queues I've gone through. I'll say it again: you have to actually and specifically look for these bad games to find them, otherwise they will never surface.
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
Durante said:
No, because Steam has a discovery queue and filtering options for that purpose (as you acknowledge).

The only time you see every single release is when you specifically elect to do so. And, well, if I do that then that is what I want.
Click to expand...

You don't need to see every release to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of crap on the Steam store.

While the discovery queue and filtering options help, they're not perfect and will leave a vast number of legitimately great games out from the curated selection that is highlighted to be perused by Steam Store users. The few times I've used the discovery queue I've been frustrated by the same games re-appearing again and again in the queue.

Outside of that, you can filter by genre or publisher etc, but each filtered list is so large and cumbersome, that users will simply give up after a while of perusing the content.

If the purpose of these features of the store is to facilitate organic discovery of games on Steam, then they're not very good and need to be re-thought (of course, this is my opinion based on my experience with them).

Durante said:
Well, yes, you need to create a game which is either excellent or has a unique appeal if you want a big hit. Or you need to plan for moderate sales.

That's just the sign of a mature medium.
Click to expand...

I feel you're ignoring or dismissing the problem here. Sure a developer needs to make a great game to be successful. That kind of truism is so mind-numbingly obvious that goes without saying, but even a great game is going to struggle to compete for attention when it's one out of a selection of 4500+ on a platform released in a single year.

Being a great game alone will only get you so far. If you can't afford a huge marketing campaign to publicize your game, then just being good isn't going to get your game noticed when there are so many shoddy games diluting the DD platforms.
 
E

Evolution of Metal

Member
Durante said:
Well, yes, you need to create a game which is either excellent or has a unique appeal if you want a big hit. Or you need to plan for moderate sales.

That's just the sign of a mature medium.
Click to expand...

You should replace moderate sales with a loss of resources (time or money). There are many games on steam which are good and have unique qualities, yet there aren't enough people spending money on the game to justify the overwhelming amount of releases. I am not even counting asset flips and trash, many new online games cannot even build the basic community: Lawbreakers, Tooth and Tail, MvC:I, Absolver, Steel Division, Raid.

How is the supply vastly outpacing demand a sign of mature medium?
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
Sad Affleck said:
I absolutely, positively, categorically can say this with a straight face. PC is my only gaming platform and Steam is my main digital delivery service. I buy quite a few games and I use the client every day. I have never even heard of all the games that Sterling routinely makes fun of. They never appeared on the front page featured titles, they never appeared in my curators list, they never appeared in any of the discovery queues I've gone through. I'll say it again: you have to actually and specifically look for these bad games to find them, otherwise they will never surface.
Click to expand...

Well, this is precisely your problem (and perhaps the reason you can't be objective about this).

I regularly buy games on PSN, Steam and sometimes Origin/Ubisoft Store. Whilst I use Gaf and the gaming media I frequent to stay up-to-date on what new games are releasing that are worth picking up, as I only have limited time to devote to these channels, there are a lot of games that I don't come across and I only discover by browsing the DD game stores.

On PSN, since there are far less games available than Steam, I routinely come across new quirky games that I might purchase on the basis of my organic discovery of those titles; through my browsing the store.

On Steam, I cannot even remember the last time I've bought a game after discovering it through the Steam queues or filtered lists. Almost every game on Steam I own, I knew about and was intentional about looking for it before I bought it. When I have tried to browse for what's new on Steam, I've quickly given up, because the majority of the stuff on the filtered lists is crap, and most of the stuff on the queues is stuff I already own on another platform or know about from elsewhere.

This is my point. Steam's discovery features aren't really enabling discovery. And when users actually want to browse the games on the store to see what's there, there's just so much there that its overwhelming.
 
P

ps3ud0

Member
Theswweet said:
The real news is Xbox One at 30m at the end of last year... maybe 40m after XOX launch?
Click to expand...
I'd double check that chart again...

How accurate could these numbers be? Anyone know how they are derived?

EDIT: Ahhh EEDAR is owned by NPD

ps3ud0 8)
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
Evolution of Metal said:
You should replace moderate sales with a loss of resources (time or money). There are many games on steam which are good and have unique qualities, yet there aren't enough people spending money on the game to justify the overwhelming amount of releases. I am not even counting asset flips and trash, many new online games cannot even build the basic community: Lawbreakers, Tooth and Tail, MvC:I, Absolver, Steel Division, Raid.

How is the supply vastly outpacing demand a sign of mature medium?
Click to expand...

Exactly.
 
D

Durante

Member
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
If the purpose of these features of the store is to facilitate organic discovery of games on Steam, then they're not very good and need to be re-thought (of course, this is my opinion based on my experience with them).
Click to expand...
Well, my experience with the discovery queue has been surprisingly positive recently.
It has allowed me to find games very relevant to my interests which I would have missed even as someone who browses GAF all the time.
(Like X-Morph Defense, which went way under the radar here)

TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
I feel you're ignoring or dismissing the problem here.
Click to expand...
I'm doing neither of those.

To some extent, I am a developer, and I'm well aware of these issues.
But artificially reducing the number of games available to people is absolutely not a solution.

And saying that it is a sing of a mature medium is also not deflection -- it's a statement of fact. How many books do you suppose are released in a year, and do authors complain about book stores not performing sufficient advertisement for their works?

Evolution of Metal said:
How is the supply vastly outpacing demand a sign of mature medium?
Click to expand...
If that is truly the case (supply outpacing demand to such a massive degree) then a correction will have to occur.
But if the number of great games outpaces the amount of money people want to spend on them -- and I believe that this could well happen -- then that is a completely orthogonal issue, and cannot be used to support the purported problem of "unworthy" games clogging up the works.

If anything, what you argue is that there are too many good games.
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
Durante said:
I'm doing neither of those.

To some extent, I am a developer, and I'm well aware of these issues.
But artificially reducing the number of games available to people is absolutely not a solution.
Click to expand...

I'm fairly sure I never once suggested that this was the solution.

There's more that can be done to facilitate discovery than Valve simply stopping allowing games to be released on the store.

Steam has systems in place to facilitate discovery, but these aren't perfect and can be improved upon.
 
S

Sad Affleck

Member
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
On PSN, since there are far less games available than Steam, I routinely come across new quirky games that I might purchase on the basis of my organic discovery of those titles; through my browsing the store.
Click to expand...

How are you browsing the Steam store? And how do you browse the PSN store? I find it extremely bizarre that you can't find new games that interest you just by browsing the Steam store.
 
Audioboxer

Audioboxer

Member
While physical sales appear to be on a downward trend (the amount of digital-only indie content is rising), if MS had released the original Xbox One vision of digital-only it would have fucking tanked. Like, even worse than what's happened to them because they 180'd it but still kept Kinect mandatory.

Long live a decently healthy physical market as digital ownership is fucking sketchy. Overpriced, sketchy ownership of licenses and not something I want to be worried about in 10 years if I ever want to play something again.
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
Audioboxer said:
While physical sales appear to be on a downward trend (the amount of digital-only indie content is rising), if MS had released the original Xbox One vision of digital-only it would have fucking tanked. Like, even worse than what's happened to them because they 180'd it but still kept Kinect mandatory.

Long live a decently healthy physical market as digital ownership is fucking sketchy. Overpriced, sketchy ownership of licenses and not something I want to be worried about in 10 years if I ever want to play something again.
Click to expand...

Lol, so true.
 
LordRaptor

LordRaptor

Member
There is a lot of "your preconceptions are wrong" data here about the last 5 years, but I am depressingly unsurprised to see consoleGAF focus like a laser on "WOW LOOK AT ALL THAT SHIT ON STEAM, PC MARKET SO BROKEN"
 
ArtHands

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
TheThreadsThatBindUs said:
Well, this is precisely your problem (and perhaps the reason you can't be objective about this).

I regularly buy games on PSN, Steam and sometimes Origin/Ubisoft Store. Whilst I use Gaf and the gaming media I frequent to stay up-to-date on what new games are releasing that are worth picking up, as I only have limited time to devote to these channels, there are a lot of games that I don't come across and I only discover by browsing the DD game stores.

On PSN, since there are far less games available than Steam, I routinely come across new quirky games that I might purchase on the basis of my organic discovery of those titles; through my browsing the store.

On Steam, I cannot even remember the last time I've bought a game after discovering it through the Steam queues or filtered lists. Almost every game on Steam I own, I knew about and was intentional about looking for it before I bought it. When I have tried to browse for what's new on Steam, I've quickly given up, because the majority of the stuff on the filtered lists is crap, and most of the stuff on the queues is stuff I already own on another platform or know about from elsewhere.

This is my point. Steam's discovery features aren't really enabling discovery. And when users actually want to browse the games on the store to see what's there, there's just so much there that its overwhelming.
Click to expand...

can you show a screencap of what Steam is showing you?
 
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