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Gorgie said:
I don't own any of the top 10, either, and I bought 82 games this year.
I don't _really_ care what games the lousy mass market buys, so long as the stuff I like sells well enough to continue to be made, but still...
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2005 videogame industry breaks all previous sales records
- Thread starter GDJustin
- Start date
I don't own any of the top 10, either, and I bought 82 games this year.
I don't _really_ care what games the lousy mass market buys, so long as the stuff I like sells well enough to continue to be made, but still...
Andrew2 said:
Hey, you wanna make the claim i'm just asking for you to back up what you are saying and show me and everyone else where your going with it. Was it in development costs? How much? Is it comparable to the normal inflation and rising costs from generation to generation? You said something about consumers not actually buying what is sold, just clarify that and provide something to back it up. I'm just tired of all this doom and gloom about the industry and yet to see anyone back it up with hard thought out evidence. The closest so far has been the whole "negligible" and "not tremoundous" growth in the industry debacle from awhile ago.
I also can't understand why people are in such a fervor to actually WANT an industry crash. Hey if you're that jaded and hate gaming so much then find a new hobby, but don't try and ruin mine and everyone elses.
Ponn01 said:
No one wants the industry to crash. But rising dev costs is the real thing and so is the lack of growth in the industry.
On dev costs:
http://news.com.com/Developers+uneasy+about+new+game+consoles/2100-1043_3-5704069.html
On groth rate(will be double what it is now in 2k9)
http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/oct2005/id20051007_999151.htm
On why games will cost more soon:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3078404/
Basically for every gen:
The growth rate is = 100%
Increased dev costs rate = 1000%
Monk said:
Could have fooled me by the way people are acting here.
That's not lack of growth, that's slow growth. Which of course there will be slow growth. People are not going to go out in the first year of release and buy 100 million PS3's or Xbox 360. Development costs will rise, that's a given by every generation. Hell, it's become the normal for other areas too like the Movie industry. They find ways to work with those costs though. Be it with cheaper developed games to make up for the "tent pole" games or developing for cheaper hardware like handhelds. Or the fact that at one time games cost 60 to 70 bucks and with rising development costs 60 dollar games will probably come back for big name games. It was nice that optical disc format allowed for cheaper games for awhile. Now there's just more added cost.
That's why I said awhile back that I was ok with smaller developers being taken up by bigger ones. People were having a tizzy fit over it but think about it. With rising costs most of these people will never stand a chance. At least with bigger developers they can pool their strenghts and they have a chance to run with an idea if it's really good as a cheaper developed game. And if it cuts down on the amount of mediocore games then so be it. I don't need a choice of 20 games a month to buy from, it can be cut down to 10 or 6. As long as theres a couple there I like that's great. I'm still asking for where this proof of decline in the industry is and still the closest we are getting is this "negligible" growth. At worst there may be a restructuring but videogames aren't going anywhere.
Ponn01 said:
Just because a small dev gets inside a big dev doesnt mean that they will keep producing good games. Like what happened to Origin being devoured by EA, the lack od dev time forced on by EA literally killed them as a company. Next gen, to make sure the costs are covered we will see more licensing of movies and the like for games.
And of the $50 you spend on games only $20 goes into paying dev costs. The other $30 goes to retailer mark ups, freight and console licensing. So next gethey may earn 50% more per game to pay off dev costs. But that is still not enough. If we assume that dev copsts increase by 500%(i think i made a mistake in my earlier post) the dev is going to be in trouble.
Lets put it this way.
This gen an average game costs 5 million to make. So to break even they have to sell 250 000 units worldwide when they get in return $20 from that $50 you spend.
Next gen an average game costs 25 million to make. So to break even they have to sell 833 000 units worldwide to break even if they get $30 every $60 you spend on a game.
Unlike the hollywood industry where "small films" can survive, the game industry hasnt shown if it can do that too. MS is having a great attempt at it with XBLA. I guess we will have to wait and see if it pans out.
Andrew2 said:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/13/AR2006011301919.html
Unit sales of current gen consoles fell 19% this year
Total console & handheld unit sales fell 6%
The sad thing is that a some really great games came out this year, but were totally ignored. I hope things turnaround by next Fall with PS3 and Rev completing the transition, and X360 hitting its stride.
Monk said:
Are you fucking shitting me? Casual online gaming and mobile gaming has had almost entirely verticle growth over the last 24 months. Nothing has grown with EVEN CLOSE to the rapidity of the casual, $10-$20 downloadable game market. Popcap Games. Playfirst. Puzzle Pirates.
this article, posted by argon, is interesting:
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2006/01/portables_save_.html
edit - i'm guessing combined sales of nintendogs would also put it in the top 10 of the year.
it also talks about the astronmical rise in online:
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2006/01/portables_save_.html
surprising!
edit - i'm guessing combined sales of nintendogs would also put it in the top 10 of the year.
it also talks about the astronmical rise in online:
GDJustin said:
You completely missed the point. What you are talking about is like a 5 minute short. I am talking about making a game with a low budget that doesnt look bad in comparison to the high budget games. After a 5 minute short that gets awards, there are producers that give funding to the director a chance for a decent big screen movie.
Currently there is a big gap between the $10 downloadable game market and the bigger budget games. In the sense that no one really knows where to go from the 10 dollar downloadable game to the big budget game. This is where XBLA has shown a lot of promise.
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Dito. Why oh why do those games get sold? Where are Resident Evil, Mario&Luigi, Sonic Rush, Luminey, Meteos, Kameo - the games which deserve to sell - on this list :'(? I don't want to hear complaints over Japanese tastes anymore, those Top Ten are really rediclious.Gorgie said:
MrSardonic
The nerdiest nerd of all the nerds in nerdland
*senses this thread has classic potential in its bones. Selects comment to fire up controversy*
From what I remember of industry reports: We've seen a fall in profits, fall in units sold, fall in the variety of successful games. EA sports titles and movie cash-ins have dominated the charts in the US and UK, and despite this (or perhaps because of it), even EA themselves have posted a drop in profits...in a year where we saw 3 new forms of hardware released. For most software releases, if they don't have a big first week then their total sales are doomed as the drop off seems to be significant after 14 days. Small developers have gone bust, not so small developers have gone bust, merged to stay competitive, or are not looking too secure for the next generation (which looks set to be even more expensive). The main help to the industry seems to have been an increased number of consoles in single households (rather than a expansion of the households containing consoles). The only exception to this so far seems to be the DS in Japan
The emergence of ever-more "media centre" style consoles and handhelds risks reducing the software tie-ratio as people exploit the console price-war to pick up cheaper multi-media playing devices. How are consumers going to react if X360 and PS3 titles are largely just next-gen versions of games we've been playing for 5 years? The industry is d0000med unless...
:lol
From what I remember of industry reports: We've seen a fall in profits, fall in units sold, fall in the variety of successful games. EA sports titles and movie cash-ins have dominated the charts in the US and UK, and despite this (or perhaps because of it), even EA themselves have posted a drop in profits...in a year where we saw 3 new forms of hardware released. For most software releases, if they don't have a big first week then their total sales are doomed as the drop off seems to be significant after 14 days. Small developers have gone bust, not so small developers have gone bust, merged to stay competitive, or are not looking too secure for the next generation (which looks set to be even more expensive). The main help to the industry seems to have been an increased number of consoles in single households (rather than a expansion of the households containing consoles). The only exception to this so far seems to be the DS in Japan
The emergence of ever-more "media centre" style consoles and handhelds risks reducing the software tie-ratio as people exploit the console price-war to pick up cheaper multi-media playing devices. How are consumers going to react if X360 and PS3 titles are largely just next-gen versions of games we've been playing for 5 years? The industry is d0000med unless...
:lol
Japan's gaming industry grew 6% as well (http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=79349). Conspiracy?
MrSardonic
The nerdiest nerd of all the nerds in nerdland
Ceb said:
Then those Media Create sales threads would not have been as fun