Gaming was SO hot for SO long I think EA started to believe its own press releases. Michael Jackson did that and just look where HE ended up!
Seriously, between innovation on the content side (agree with you about Star Wars, @AskAsa) and innovation on the hardware side, snoozing is a recipe for LOSING!
There are tons of Free to Play MMOs that have adopted that sales strategy, and I'm fairly certain its popular. Certain "premium" MMOs, Like Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online,have switched from subscrption based format to a free to play, in-game store driven system.
Does anyone else think that the market will eventually level out? I personally doubt that everyone who plays video games will find themselves preferring mob wars and fruit ninja to console and computer releases.
Re: Connectivty
Phoenix
5/18/2012 9:41:23 PM
You are right about that. Zynga makes money buy selling small items as supporting features in a game although the actual game is free. Since its free more gamers can be attracted to play specially through Facebook. And it can be played in multiple devices all day long. I don't think gamers even reslise they spend much more than $60 while buying multiple items for the game once they get addicted to it. Some games are also related to each other. You get rewarded for playing multiple games. I think all this succeeds in continuous sales.
Old
AskAsa
5/18/2012 4:36:09 PM
When Old Republic was being introduced I heard mixed reaction from gamers and scifi fans.
Old Republic is old. The Star Wars saga has flooded our culture for more than 30 yearrs. I couldn't drag my kids to the theatrical re-releases. Are we tired of warmed over characters bearing light swords and invoking the Force?
In some ways game sales can also be a little deceptive.
Even though EA's Mass Effect 3 brought in $200 million (still a good haul) since its launch a few months ago, the Avengers movie topped that in one weekend.
Maybe it's not fair to compare a movie to a game but let's think about the price of admission for each form of entertainment. Movie tickets cost around $10 each(that is a rough guess given discounts for matinees and mark ups for 3D features). Premium games cost about $60 each.
That means you have a higher volume of consumers paying less money for a couple of hours of fun in a movie versus a smaller audience spending more money on each premium game.
Casual games have a chance to attract higher volumes of consumers at lower prices.
Re: Connectivty
Phoenix
5/18/2012 12:53:38 PM
WoW seems to have done a good job at building brand loyalty so that they still have a large customer base who continue to play the game. But the decline shown from 2010 can be attributed to more popular casual games. Most are free so I doubt gamers in that segment will want to pay such high prices for game consoles and games. The point about the tv becoming a multitasking gaming centre is a good one. I also think that gamers would like to be able to switch the same game around in multiple devices. I wonder how this will work for EA.
Video game sales across the industry were down about four percent in March compared with March 2011 according to NPD. If you factor in game hardware and accessorie sales as well, it gets much worse.
Casual games may be a factor; the major game publishers have not made much headway in that market. I don't have a breakdown of casual games sales versus premium titles but the prices are drastically different.
It can be hard to get the casual consumer to pay $60 for a game and then spend MORE money for additional content for that same game when a casual game offers entertainment for much less.
Some premium games do make a lot of money. One of EA's other titles called Mass Effect 3 has generated more than $200 million in sales since its release in March. But that is the exception and not the rule.
How much of a threat do you think casual gaming is to EA? It seems like that has had an influence but with the poor results there must be more going on than that trend.
When WoW hit the market, it wasn't even the first massive multiplayer game but it executed very well.
EverQuest (dubbed EverCrack by fans) was arguably the most popular game in this sector until World of Warcraft marched its hordes of orcs on to the scene.
World of Warcraft is down from its peak of about 12 million subscribers back in 2010 yet it is still the leader that others chase.
EA claims The Old Republic is the Number 2 massive multiplayer game with its 1.3 million subscribers. That's a fraction of what WoW pulls in each month.
Amazing that even after all the hype and anticipation, The Old Republic only garnered 1.3 million subscribers. Makes you wonder what Blizzard did that made World of Warcraft so popular.
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