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UK retailers sold 2,075,634 games last week, generating over £50m in revenue.
Sales have been steadily rising throughout December as Christmas approaches, and last week sales were driven bysignificant price reductions on games such as Medal of Honor, Halo, Hitman, Need for Speed and more. Unit sales rose 11 per cent week-on-week, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II remains the top seller.
It's a good figure, certainly, but Christmas has been slower than anticipated overall. And for the entire year so far, games retail is still 28.3 per cent down over 2011.
Next weekend is the last one before Christmas and is expected to be a big one for the entire retail market. MCV will bring you the market data plus news of the all-important Christmas No.1.
Call Of Duty: Black Ops II spends a fifth consecutive week at number one in the UK all-formats software chart, matching Lego Batman 2′s run at the top earlier in the year.Hitman Absolution takes the second spot, climbing four places from number six last week as a result of a price promotion while FIFA 13 sits tight at number three for the sixth week in a row. Just Dance 4 remains static, too, keeping hold of position four while Far Cry 3 slips three places to number five – in the process knocking Assassin’s Creed III to six.Thereafter, the top ten is unchanged from last week.01. Call Of Duty: Black Ops II (Activision)
02. Hitman Absolution (Square Enix)
03. FIFA 13 (EA Sports)
04. Just Dance 4 (Ubisoft)
05. Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)
06. Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft)
07. Halo 4 (Microsoft)
08. Need For Speed Most Wanted (EA)
09. Lego The Lord Of The Rings (Warner Bros)
10. WWE 13 (THQ)
Think this year’s Xmas No.1 in games will be Call of Duty or FIFA? It is more likely to be Angry Birds or Minecraft.
Xbox Live, Steam, iOS, PSN and the rest are expecting a surge in downloads on December 25th, as gamers receive consoles, tablets, PCs and points cards as gifts.
According to research firm Kantar Worldpanel, the two weeks ending January 1st will account for almost seven per cent of all games downloaded across mobile, tablet, console and PC this year.
“Christmas Day is huge,” said Ed Rumley, the COO of EA’s mobile publishing business Chillingo. “But that’s not surprising when you consider the number of people getting Kindle Fires and iPad Minis. There is all this incredible hardware on the market now at very affordable prices.
“In fact, January is our biggest month. Because that is the period when the iTunes gift cards are getting converted into spend.”
Green Man Gaming boss Paul Sulyok added: “We anticipate the Christmas to New Year period will account for over 60 per cent of our December revenue.”
Digital music and movies also sees a surge in activity over the festive months.
“With the Christmas holidays, we do see an increase in Xbox Live activity but it’s not just games,” said Xbox Live UK product manager Pav Bhardwaj.
“Entertainment consumption on Live has increased 140 per cent year-on-year globally. With the number of apps growing, and a host of DLC due this month including Halo 4, Skyrim and Nike+, there will be something for everyone on Xbox this holiday.”
End of year lists are ten a penny. Top 20 this. Best 5 that. This is the only list you need.
With 2012 such a transformative year for games Michael French, Chris Dring, Ben Parfitt and James Batchelor pick the seven games that exemplify the biggest changes in the market...
Borderlands 2 and the so-called death of retail
Is retail dying? It’s difficult to ignore the hard facts and figures. Sales of physical video games are almost 30 per cent down this year. GAME had to close half of its stores. Big brands such as Halo and Call of Duty failed to match their predecessors at Day One. Even new hardware Wii U and Vita were greeted with indifference from some.
The reasons for these difficulties have been discussed at length in MCV this year; the rise of the digital games market, the on-going economic storm, the end of the console cycle.
But if you were to focus on the handful of games that managed to buck the trend you can see that in fact the retail market isn’t necessarily dying. It’s just lacking content, imagination… and risk.
Borderlands 2 is a shining example. The game was the sequel to the moderately successful 2009 shooter that, at the time, was quite unlike anything we’ve seen before, with its mix of RPG and shooting gameplay with cel-shaded visuals.
2K Games backed the sequel with a big marketing campaign, developer Gearbox delivered on the quality, and fans flocked to the stores. It may be a cel-shaded shooting/RPG hybrid – a pitch that won’t excite many publishers – but it is this year’s fifth fastest selling game.
There are other examples of retail’s still significant power, too. FIFA 13 comfortably outmatched the sales performance of its predecessors, and remains one of the highest rated sports games on Metacritic. Mass Effect 3 beat its forebears despite not being stocked in GAME. Meanwhile Assassin’s Creed III’s debut was a personal sales best for Ubisoft. And one of the very few core new IPs that anyone dared to release this year, Bethesda’s excellent Dishonored, also beat its sales expectations.
These games were backed with marketing and were excellent in quality, and as a result they sold admirably. The titles this year that disappointed (such as Resident Evil 6 and Medal of Honor: Warfighter for instance) either lacked publisher backing or received mixed reviews.
There’s no denying that video games stores had a difficult 2012. Yet there is clear evidence that the High Street can still be a great place to sell video games in 2013, if the support and quality is right.
And with some fantastic looking big-budget boxed games due next year – such as BioShock, GTA, The Last of Us and Watch Dogs – there’s reasons to believe that next year may not be quite so depressing. CD
Double Fine Adventure and the rise of Kickstarter
One of the year’s most defining games doesn’t actually exist yet.
No one will have missed the insatiable rise of games funded via Kickstarter this year. The crowdfunding site has drawn an indelible line under the crucial issue of funding for games, allowing gamers, fans and the media to promote and fund worthy projects.
Double Fine’s new title codenamed ‘Reds’ was the watershed moment, raising $3.3m. The San Francisco studio, headed by famed games designer Tim Schafer, used the service to fund its next adventure title – a genre publishers have lost interest in.
The fan-backed model wasn’t new in 2012, but Double Fine passing its multi-million milestone pushed it into mainstream recognition.
The success of this defined launch strategies for many indies. Kickstarter boomed in Double Fine’s wake, with many using it to get their off-beat projects started. Seven of Kickstarter’s biggest projects ever were from games funds raised this year including launches by InXile (its Wasteland sequel raised $2.9m), Oculus Rift (3D games headset, $2.4m), Obsidian’s Project Eternity ($3.9m) and Ouya (the Android games console, $8.5m).
Kickstarter even launched a UK arm so projects could be launched in Pounds Sterling. Famed designers like Peter Molyneux and David Braben plus a wave of up-and-coming Brit indies leapt at the chance to make dreams (such as Braben’s Elite sequel) a reality.
Crowdfunding, however, is not a magic bullet. And its long-term power is still to be proven. Backing a title can be interpreted as either seed funding cash that you’ll never see back or pre-ordering. Smaller, underexposed indies have grumbled when heavyweights like Schafer and Braben – already rich through their previous projects – have opted to take gamers’ cash rather than bankroll their own games.
Plus: none of those high-profile projects have emerged yet. Crowdfunding is a powerful marketing tool, giving a chance to games that wouldn’t have appeared through traditional means, yet it’s no guarantee of actual delivery.
Even Double Fine, which first promised a completed game within 2012, pushed launch to mid-2013. The money is being spent on building a game engine first.
So, one of 2012’s most defining games doesn’t actually exist yet. But its influence is undeniable.MF Nintendo Land and the arrival of new hardware
It's the one issue the industry seems to have a consensus on: we need new console hardware.
This generation
...
Brand new video games are being sold for less than £20, as publishers and retailers fear a disappointing Christmas.
New titles such as WWE '13 and Hitman Absolution, both of which were released just last month, are already being sold for £19.99 as part of 'special promotions'.
The price discounting is mostly driven from the market leaders GAME, Amazon and Tesco. Medal of Honor: Warfighter now has a price tag of £20, Just Dance 4 is on sale for £18, while there are heavily discounts for Halo 4 (£29.99), Resident Evil 6 (£22.99), Dishonored (£21.99), Borderlands 2 (£25) and LEGO The Lord of The Rings (£25).
It follows a slower than expected Christmas sales period for UK stores. Last week 1.87m games were sold, generated £49.2m.
That may sound like a lot, but last year during the same week 2.6m games were sold, generating £68.3m in revenue.
Despite big launches for Assassin's Creed III and FIFA 13, the High Street has suffered softer than expected launches for Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Wii U. There has also been fewer games on the release schedule, a trend that will continue into the New Year.
Retailers and publishers are hoping to shift excess stock before Christmas, rather than wait for the January sales. And retail execs have told MCV that the next two weeks will prove crucial as we head into the last two weekends before Christmas.
Amazon is often coming up with ways to have folks like yourself (and us, too) spend some dough on one of its many, many offerings -- and, well, today's no exception. A short while ago, the online retailer announced a new service dubbed Friends and Family Gifting, which will give internet shoppers a one-stop hub where they can easily create gift / wish lists to use while readying for events such as an upcoming friend's birthday, other special occasions and, of course, the holiday season. The newAmazon feature also integrates with social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest, making it easier to share links of stuff you're thinking of adding to your cart. Friends and Family Gifting is live now, so hit the source link below if you'd like to give it a try.
Yakuza 5 debuted at No.1 on the Japanese software chart during the week ended December 9. The PS3 exclusive sold 357,000 copies, which was more than the combined total of the top three Wii U launch games.New Super Mario Bros. U was the week's second best-selling game, ahead of Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and Animal Crossing: New Leaf.
As previously reported, Wii U sales hit 308,000 units in its launch weekend alone, making it the country's best-selling console by a comfortable margin.
3DS sales came in at 211,500, PS3 sales at 37,000, PSP sales at 20,000 and Vita sales at 11,000, according to Media Create sales data republished on NeoGAF. Software sales Dec 03 - Dec 09 (lifetime total)
Yakuza 5 (PS3, Sega) - 356,757 / New
New Super Mario Bros. U (Wii U, Nintendo) - 163,528 / New
Paper Mario: Sticker Star (3DS, Nintendo) - 129,054 / New
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (Wii U, Capcom) - 106,388 / New
Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS, Nintendo) - 89,195 / 1.301.507
Nintendo Land (Wii U, Nintendo) - 72,121 / New
Taiko no Tatsujin Wii: Super Deluxe Edition (Wii, Bandai Namco) - 58.655 / 174,610
New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS, Nintendo) - 47,929 / 1,501,086
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Magnagate and the Infinite Dungeon (3DS, Pokemon Co.) - 43,005 / 212,524
Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney (3DS Level 5) - 29,271 / 158,127
The Game Monetization Summit offered some crucial advice from key players and discussed the secrets of whales
The Digital Game Monetization Summit in San Francisco had a number of speakers and panels that not only presented opinions and analysis, but also refreshingly presented us with some specific numbers and examples. Since digital distribution is generally opaque, getting some insight into the amount of money being made, and how, is vitally important. The following overview hits some of the high points of the varied array of presentations.
Paul Thelen, CEO of Big Fish, offered a look at the lessons Big Fish has learned from the business of casual games. Big Fish has been profitable all through its 11-year life span, and continues to grow at “healthy” double-digits. Thelen noted that while the PC is not considered a growth platform, Big Fish is still adding audience for its PC games - so it's a growth platform for them. According to Thelen, Big Fish is making money with a variety of business models, from premium casual games sold for $19.99 to free-to-play games. Thelen's key advice is to try and continually reinvent yourself. “Just because we made money doing this last year doesn't mean we will make money doing this again next year,” he noted.
“You need to match the game mechanic to the business model, and the monetization needs to match the business model of the game,” Thelen said. “If you have a game that has 6 to 8 hours of linear gameplay and when you finish it, you're done, there are very limited ways you can monetize that game. What we've done is a simple transaction; you buy it, just like you would buy a book. It's very hard to monetize a book with free-to-play.” Big Fish provides a variety of price points for its games, ranging from a $19.95 'collector's edition' to a standard edition at $6.99 or $9.99, as well as subscriptions and free-to-play.
Kongregate's big spenders
Big Fish is planning to launch some 250 games in 2013, and Thelen said that almost all will have a positive return on the PC. Big Fish now is in the process of bringing many games to mobile; Thelen points out that a high production value game for Big Fish, which would cost about $500,000 to produce, can be ported to the iPad for about $20,000. “Now you have a half-million dollar game on a hyper growth platform, and that game has already returned a profit to the developer,” Thelen said.
Thelen provided some eye-opening numbers about the state of the business. “Free-to-play is a huge market, and there are people making crazy amounts of money,” Thelen said. “Supercell came from nowhere after a lot of mistakes, and they are now making $300 million on two games on iOS alone.” Thelen also noted that free-to-play games reach 1.2 billion PC users, and that 14 million gamers are visiting Big Fish each month, so there's plenty of room for growth. "Just because we made money doing this last year doesn't mean we will make money doing this again next year" Paul Thelen, Big Fish
The next session featured panelists talking about the business of games, and they noted some astonishing statistics. For example, mobile hit Temple Run quintupled its revenue when it switched to a freemium model. While many have focused on creating casual games for the greatly expanded demographics available through social, online, and mobile platforms, some of the panelists felt the opportunity lies elsewhere.
“If you look at what people successfully did on Facebook or the early days of mobile, a lot of it was about cheap user acquisition through the spammy virality that Facebook allowed for a while, or manipulations of the terms of service from Apple or Google on the mobile side. That's gone away,” said Greg Richardson, CEO of Rumble Entertainment. “Of the $50 billion that was spent worldwide last year on games, less than 10 percent was spent on casual content. These companies were really smart around analytics and monetization and very light in terms of product and content creation. I'm not sure any of those things are particularly sustainable. The future lies in going into the larger part of the market which is people that self-identify as gamers, and where the user acquisition and long-term value creation comes from making great games.”
Some gaming enthusiasts find buying games on the High Street safer than via online, says Ubisoft.
The firm’s free-to-play publishing director Thomas Paincon said that some consumers trust the High Street over online services and free-to-play games. And that’s why the firm is launching a boxed version of digital F2P title, The Settlers Online.
Paincon said: “Now, with the opportunity to reach more players and monetize them through their regular channel in retail, we should experience nice results.
“Some players tend to trust what packaged goods offer, even for free-to-play online titles, more than spending money directly online.”
Paincon hopes that releasing the firm’s browser games at retail will help widen the potential audience for Ubisoft’s titles.
The news follows a similar move from free-to-play giant Bigpoint. The firm has released a trio of its titles at UK retail via Contact Sales.
A new report by GameTrack shows that America is still the Western world's gaming superpower. American gamers still outnumber their UK counterparts, they play across more devices and mediums, and they also show the largest appetite for online gaming.
Thanks to the study, run by Ipsos nMediaCT, we know that almost half of the American gaming audience (48 per cent) play online games, compared 42 per cent who played packaged games. And while it's still easy to think of big MMOs like World Of Warcraft when online gaming is mentioned, 27 per cent of that online gaming in the US is through browsers. 31 per cent also played games through apps on their phones and tablets, a figure that seems surprisingly low considering most people have a mobile phone capable of hosting those apps.
By comparison the UK gamers are still traditionalists, with packaged games still the biggest part of the audiences' gaming diet, followed by online and apps. In the online category play is distributed evenly over downloads, social, multiplayer and browser.
This order of importance for packaged, online and app games is mirrored by France, Germany and Spain. In monetary terms, packaged is still the most important player, although the report notes this share is falling in both the UK and Spain.
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