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MCV: UK games market down 17.4% in 2012

R

radioheadrule83

Banned
Courtesy of Ben Parfitt, MCV
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/overall-uk-games-market-down-17-4-in-2012/0108783

The ERA has said that the UK video games market declined 17.4 per cent to £1.598bn in 2012.

Those numbers include both physical and digital sales.

By contrast, music was down just 5.5 per cent and video 10 per cent. The overall entertainment market decline was 12 per cent, with games very much standing out as the worst performer.

In 2011 the UK games market was worth £1.934bn.

All of this is despite gains in the digital sector. Digital video game sales grew 7.7 per cent in 2012 to £552.2m making video games the most valuable digital entertainment sector in the UK – although it also commands the slowest growth.

Video was up 20.3 per cent to £97.9m while music jumped 15.1 per cent to £383.3m. Overall digital entertainment sales increased 11.4 per cent to £1.034bn.

Physical still accounts for the majority of the market, however, although its importance is certainly dwindling. Physical sales accounted for 65.4 per cent of the 2012 video games market – which is down from 73.5 per cent the year before.
Click to expand...

The bottom line here is that the 7.7 per cent growth in UK digital games sales in the UK was not enough to offset the 26 per cent slump in boxed games. Sales of physical video games are now down to just £1.05bn – an unimaginable low compared to the highs of just a few years ago.
Click to expand...

A poor Summer is partially blamed for this year's slump too, with a nod towards the kind of plight GAME experienced this year:

“The dearth of attractive releases during summer 2012 was clearly a significant factor. Suppliers need to do more to rebalance their release schedules and improve the quality of their releases. No retailer can afford to pay overheads on a store for 52 weeks of the year if all the key releases are going to be concentrated in the last quarter.

“And entrepreneurs will think twice about investing in new digital services if releases fail to excite the public. Luckily the message appears to be getting through and we look forward to being able to offer the public a much better release slate in 2013.”
Click to expand...


- story covering the silver lining of digital sales increases is also here: http://www.eraltd.org/news/era-news...exceeds-£1bn-in-sales-for-the-first-time.aspx
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Plastic shit market now non-existant, expanded Wii user-base fizzled into non-consumers of future gaming content: market is simply returning to its standard operating procedure. This year also wasn't big on huge releases, a quick gander at the insane Q1 2013 tells that tale already.
 
U

user_nat

THE WORDS! They'll drift away without the _!
Better than I was expecting. Seemed like most of the year was down by more. Last few months must have "saved" it.
Would be interesting to see how much of that drop is just Wii software.
 
L

liger05

Member
I really dont think this is simply cos people are bored and waiting for 'next gen.'

Other than a few titles people are just prepared to wait now and pick them up when the price drop occurs.
 
M

MrT-Tar

Member
Did the U.K market ever exceed that of Japan? I remember many people were portraying it as inevitable, but did it actually do it?
 
D

Dynoro

Member
Interesting how large the digital side of things is now; £552m (digital) to £1046m (physical). I assume this is a similar case elsewhere in Europe and beyond (US and Japan). Without digital (or combined physical and digital) charts the weekly/monthly sales threads will be next to useless with 1/3 sales ignored.
 
F

farnham

Banned
Pie and Beans said:
Plastic shit market now non-existant, expanded Wii user-base fizzled into non-consumers of future gaming content: market is simply returning to its standard operating procedure. This year also wasn't big on huge releases, a quick gander at the insane Q1 2013 tells that tale already.
Click to expand...

mainly due to the fact that nobody except nintendo and ubi bothered to make games for them. Huge waste imho.

But looking at dev comments or the general opinion on gaf non gamer sales are worse then non sales...
 
P

pestul

Member
Dynoro said:
Interesting how large the digital side of things is now; £552m (digital) to £1046m (physical). I assume this is a similar case elsewhere in Europe and beyond (US and Japan). Without digital (or combined physical and digital) charts the weekly/monthly sales threads will be next to useless with 1/3 sales ignored.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that will have to change soon or we'll have thread after thread of bombas from Wario64. UK Internet is still a lot better than NAs though right? I mean I have a Fibre connection, but I think those speeds are much more prevalent in the UK.
 
T

The Abominable Snowman

Member
This gen might be finally winding down. 17% isn't even a bad drop when you think about it (Two/three consoles dying, 3 new consoles tepid, average selling prices rising, many high profile 2012 games going to 2013)
 
D

Delusibeta

Banned
Considering a) it's MCV writing about the UK games market, they're inevitably going to claim it's doing far better than it's actually doing since it's the UK games market that's keeping them in business and b) Ben Parfitt wrote the article and he is well known for having no idea what he's doing, I wouldn't be too surprised if the true figure is closer to -50% YoY than the -17.4% they're claiming.
 
9

99%

Member
Competition is so cut throat down in the UK that you can pickup new games half price.

On launch day you just walk from Tesco to Gamestop and some places and see who has the half price deal. This must be killing the market.

This scenario doesn't exist anywhere in Europe outside of the UK and Ireland .

+ end of gen
+ crisis
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
farnham said:
mainly due to the fact that nobody except nintendo and ubi bothered to make games for them. Huge waste imho.

But looking at dev comments or the general opinion on gaf non gamer sales are worse then non sales...
Click to expand...

Fickle market. That extended audience isn't the set likely to buy game consoles and platforms like clockwork, theyre ruled by fads and most likely all enjoyed Kindle Fires, Nexus7's and iPad mini's this Christmas.

Fickle markets are great for short term exploitation and cash, but keeping hold of them is a losing battle. Better to focus on the hardcore market thats resigned to buying a console or two every generation because "thats what you do". Nintendo however have pissed on both the bonfires warming their camp and are going to be in big trouble going forward.
 
D

Dynoro

Member
pestul said:
Yeah, that will have to change soon or we'll have thread after thread of bombas from Wario64. UK Internet is still a lot better than NAs though right? I mean I have a Fibre connection, but I think those speeds are much more prevalent in the UK.
Click to expand...

UK internet is 9mbps on average - which isn't bad at all. The UK market seems very receptive to digital sales as well which is probably leading to the growth of digital; not just in games but music and video as well.
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
More Fun To Compute said:
MVC are reporting figures from the era. So I don't know how much leeway the reporter has in terms of puffing up the games industry and getting the story wrong.
Click to expand...

Rule of thumb these days with MCV is that numbers are numbers, they need sources to quote, but any of the surrounding text is most likely total bullshit: eg: WiiU's High Street Sell Out claim.
 
D

Delusibeta

Banned
More Fun To Compute said:
MVC are reporting figures from the era. So I don't know how much leeway the reporter has in terms of puffing up the games industry and getting the story wrong.
Click to expand...

Ben Parfitt probably could screw up a "there was rain yesterday"-like story (and he has done so before). Still, I'm going to remain skeptical on the figures, since it is an association of entertainment retailers, and it wouldn't surprise me if there was some creative accounting to boost the figures and make them look better.
 
S

Starwolf_UK

Member
99% said:
On launch day you just walk from Tesco to Gamestop and some places and see who has the half price deal. This must be killing the market.
Click to expand...
Can you? There are 0 Gamestop stores to walk in to outside of Ireland and if you meant Gamestation...well, they don't exist any more either.

Also those rarely exist outside of big releases and even then they can be so-so.
 
Go_Ly_Dow

Go_Ly_Dow

Member
The cost of living and essentials has sky rocketed over the last 2 years here.

Wages have not and unemployment has remained high.
 
F

farnham

Banned
Pie and Beans said:
Fickle market. That extended audience isn't the set likely to buy game consoles and platforms like clockwork, theyre ruled by fads and most likely all enjoyed Kindle Fires, Nexus7's and iPad mini's this Christmas.

Fickle markets are great for short term exploitation and cash, but keeping hold of them is a losing battle. Better to focus on the hardcore market thats resigned to buying a console or two every generation because "thats what you do". Nintendo however have pissed on both the bonfires warming their camp and are going to be in big trouble going forward.
Click to expand...

Would have been better to win over some of those "fickle" customers which money apparantly is less worse then the money of the hardcore overlords by making some good products for them rather then ignoring their existence by telling oneself that they are all soccermoms and will go to the next fad anyway.. If you are limiting to a small portion of the whole population you will probably not be able to sustain a multibillion industry for a very long time.
 
C

Captain Smoker

Member
Pie and Beans said:
Rule of thumb these days with MCV is that numbers are numbers, they need sources to quote, but any of the surrounding text is most likely total bullshit: eg: WiiU's High Street Sell Out claim.
Click to expand...
MCV usually uses ChartTrack - data. (In this case, provided by ERA)

Rule of thumb should be ignoring your post sometimes.
 
M

Mael

Member
Pie and Beans said:
Fickle market. That extended audience isn't the set likely to buy game consoles and platforms like clockwork, theyre ruled by fads and most likely all enjoyed Kindle Fires, Nexus7's and iPad mini's this Christmas.

Fickle markets are great for short term exploitation and cash, but keeping hold of them is a losing battle. Better to focus on the hardcore market thats resigned to buying a console or two every generation because "thats what you do". Nintendo however have pissed on both the bonfires warming their camp and are going to be in big trouble going forward.
Click to expand...

It's funny because you think the product is totally irrelevant to the performance in the market and that the "hardcore" demographic is not ruled by fads either.
 
S

SmashN'Grab

Member
When they talk about the size of the digital market - does that include Steam? And if so, how do they get access to the Steam numbers? Or are they just guessing?
 
C

Captain Smoker

Member
pieatorium said:
I doubt it, UK is almost double the size market so it would require huge growth in germany
Click to expand...
The traditional console market had the same size (Console Hardware + Console Software + PC Software) in 2011.

I don't have revenues for german accessories, but they're probably also quite the same.
 
S

SmokyDave

Member
Do we know which platforms are counted? Is Steam included? Origin? iOS? Android?

RamzaIsCool said:
Can Germany overtake them this year as Europe's biggest market?
Click to expand...

Do we know if the German market is expanding, contracting or holding firm?

Do we know that about anywhere else? It'd be interesting to see data for all of Europe (and US / Japan too).
 
C

Captain Smoker

Member
SmokyDave said:
Do we know which platforms are counted? Is Steam included? Origin? iOS? Android?



Do we know if the German market is expanding, contracting or holding firm?

Do we know that about anywhere else? It'd be interesting to see data for all of Europe (and US / Japan too).
Click to expand...
I'm compiling this data currently.

I wanted to post these comparisons in the next "Worldwide revenue" - thread.


I'm at work currently, so I can't post any data from my files, but I created these threads back then:

- Worldwide revenue 2011 (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=471510)
- Worldwide revenue 2008 (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=356585)
- Worldwide revenue 2007 (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=276946)
 
D

Dynoro

Member
SmokyDave said:
Do we know which platforms are counted? Is Steam included? Origin? iOS? Android?



Do we know if the German market is expanding, contracting or holding firm?

Do we know that about anywhere else? It'd be interesting to see data for all of Europe (and US / Japan too).
Click to expand...

What these numbers really tell us is that we know nothing of the size of the UK market or any other for that matter. There's virtually no information on the platforms being counted; the assumption is all of them though. But this raises other issues; like are Steam purchases in the UK actually counted as UK or wherever Valve's tax is paid (same for Google with Android and Apple with iOS). A drop of 17% may also be way above the other European markets; so is a cause for celebration or much worse and is a cause for caution - we have no reliable 2012 data covering physical and digital with platform and market splits; so we don't know.
 
R

radioheadrule83

Banned
SmashN'Grab said:
When they talk about the size of the digital market - does that include Steam? And if so, how do they get access to the Steam numbers? Or are they just guessing?
Click to expand...

Last years figures included estimates of digital sales generally, which they put together through sampling (can be surprisingly accurate) and sources like Wiggin EMR (media law firm's research)... in 2011, they estimated steam as 50-70% of all PC download sales for example... I think this will include Steam et al within digital sales estimates generally.
 
M

MrNyarlathotep

Banned
Pie and Beans said:
This year also wasn't big on huge releases
Click to expand...

New numbered non-spin-off Halo
New numbered non-spin-off Assassins Creed
New Forza
New F1
New Call Of Duty
New FIFA
New NSMB handheld
New NSMB console
New Mario Kart handheld
New Football Manager
New Diablo
New WoW Expansion
New Pokemon
New Skylanders
New Lego Franchise base on popular IP (LOTR)
New Just Dance

The above are all huge selling franchises.
I'm not even including franchise reboots like Far Cry or Hitman, or new critical successes like Xcom or Dishonoured.

I don't know what a year full of huge releases looks like if this one doesn't.
 
A

acm2000

Member
how much does the nonexistant wii sales compared to last year, and the lacklustre wiiu/vita sales have to do with this?
 
M

Moonstone

Member
SmokyDave said:
Do we know which platforms are counted? Is Steam included? Origin? iOS? Android?



Do we know if the German market is expanding, contracting or holding firm?
Click to expand...

According to BIU first half of 2012 market was still expanding:
3be45ef6c5.png
 
V

Visualante2

Member
Does an off shore retailer like the hut compromise this figure? What about digital retailers working out of Switzerland, like Steam, Amazon and probably platform holders?

GAME closing a bunch of their stores probably hurts some also.
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Captain Smoker said:
MCV usually uses ChartTrack - data. (In this case, provided by ERA)

Rule of thumb should be ignoring your post sometimes.
Click to expand...

Perhaps in your haste to ignore, you failed to read. I said numbers are numbers, indisputable, but the rest of the wordy accompliment to many MCV articles can be completely discounted as nonsense. Eg: WiiU sold 40k at launch (fact), sold out on High Street (noooooooooooope).
 
R

radioheadrule83

Banned
acm2000 said:
how much does the nonexistant wii sales compared to last year, and the lacklustre wiiu/vita sales have to do with this?
Click to expand...

The decline of the Wii will be a factor, but it's been in decline since 2008 and other platforms have supposedly been hitting new strides. Wii is still a force in shifting units of the likes of Just Dance 4, Lego LOTR, Skylanders etc as well. It's a ~£336m downturn, and in light of some of the big franchises MrNyarlathotep just mentioned and 3 new/recent hardware launches, it's quite a shock really... it should be doing better than it is.

Personally, I think it speaks to the average Brit's economic priorities at the moment. When your leaders preach austerity and you fear for your job - it's these kind of luxurious purchases that you cut back on and get bargain-bin-happy or deal-savvy with... even if you can't resist a new tablet for Christmas. There are no doubt numerous factors at work: GAME closed nearly half of their stores (every town centre had 2 of them for some reason), the Olympics stole a huge chunk of our attention (everyone except SEGA avoided clashing with it), we're at the generational downturn etc... but I still think the packaged business taking a precipitous 26% dive and the gaming market losing out more than movies and music in spite of plenty of new product has to be something of a concern for people in this industry.
 
A

Alessandro

Member
I blame Cheap Arse Gaffer. In five years I haven't bought a single videogame that didn't come from UK: last purchase was Anarchy Reigns from Zavvi for 19.29€ (at my local Gamestop its price is 59.99€ and Amazon has it for 29.60€).

It's strange though that the UK market keeps shrinking because I bet a lot of people in across Europe do my same choice. Maybe analysts don't keep track of online retailers?
 
B

Baconsammy

Banned
Kazuma Kiryu said:
i vaguely remember people in the pal charts threads talking about how the UK market wasn't shrinking...
Click to expand...

Some people refuse to accept that the market is expanding or changing. It's easier to look at Nintendo's poor showing and write it off as "Oh well, people in the UK stopped playing games all of a sudden for no apparent reason." Meanwhile games are featured very heavily at the top of iTunes and Google apps charts every single day.
 
E

electroplankton

Banned
Baconsammy said:
Some people refuse to accept that the market is expanding or changing. It's easier to look at Nintendo's poor showing and write it off as "Oh well, people in the UK stopped playing games all of a sudden for no apparent reason." Meanwhile games are featured very heavily at the top of iTunes and Google apps charts every single day.
Click to expand...

In the meanwhile, some people refuse to accept that the contraction of the market is not only due to Nintendo's dying platforms, and slow start of the new ones; in Italy, for example, Black Ops 2 is selling one third of what Modern Warfare 3 was selling in the same span of time.
 
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