Be Excellent To Each Other

New Nielsen report about spending on games vs time spent playing them.

An interesting little point buried within, which is sure to have developers teeth gnashing:



Which I bet will be countered with more DLC cards being given out with new copies of game.

And then completely negate the whole idea by offering the DLC for peanuts on XBL.

Chart for the Gaywood.



I wonder what happens in April to make those dips. Surely Easter doesn't impact used games sales.

I suppose it's when a lot of people with kids choose to go away it being so much more expensive in August. That's certainly how I used to do it when the boys were little anyway.

Also it's the new financial year, so everyone's just been sacked.

None of the above! It's when all of shite games come out, innit.

Basically, you've got the shit at Easter, gradually building up over the summer with some bigger releases and bored kids on their holidays, then you get the autumn good stuff, then BAM at Christmas. Then it falls again as people pick up the good games released at Christmas after Christmas, falling to an all time low in shitty April. Then it starts again!

Note that is a dip in the proportion of used games sales, it says nothing about relative volume numbers. I would suggest that's because nothing much at all comes out in January/Feb, meaning there are no "new" second hand games coming through in April. What this tells us is that there are a class of consumers who make a conscious decision to be the second purchaser of a game. People who will note a game when it is released, then seek it out when the preowed copies start showing up.

Note the very large dip in 2008, larger than other years. That'll probably be because the number of preowned sales stayed the same -- but the number of new sales spiked massively due to GTA4.

With that in mind, it's interesting that there isn't a lull in December when all the hot new retail releases come out.

What I take away from this plot is that there are a lot of canny consumers out there.

Funny how used games, with their lower price point, are an impulse purchase but a shop full of £39.99 games gets at best a derisive snort and at worst a foaming rant on here (from me).

The other interesting point (on Eurogamer) was that the 'industry' is starting to realize that trying to throw everything out the door at Christmas when everyone else is doing the same is idiocy - as folks like me can't afford to buy all ten AAA titles at Christmas and will end up with maybe four... and getting the others in spring by which time they're either bargain bin or used (which means you get nothing, NOTHING!, 'industry'!)

Codebastards went on to say 'yes, we arrogantly realize this and because we're still managing to trade on our reputation for that brief peak at the end of the 90s, we released a lot of our excellent titles during the summer, like Damnation, FUEL and Overlord 2!'

A wag quite rightly pointed out in the comments that Codebastards realizing the only way they could shift their shoddy wares was to hoy them out the door in June when people are desperate for something new was clever of them, at least, as it saves them the trouble of releasing something decent for a change.