Boxed PC games market 'gone by 2011'

[app103]

1C’s international publishing director Darryl Still has accused retail of failing to support boxed PC games.

The industry veteran says that by refusing to stock certain games and moving PC titles to the back of the store, retail is forcing publishers to head towards digital distribution. And that PC games software will be sold entirely through digital channels by next year.

“In the PC market at the moment the growth in digital is phenomenal,” said Still.

“If PC games manage to get listed at retail, then they’re rarely getting any exposure because they’re appearing at the back of the store.

“There is still demand, but retail is forcing PC games out. Digital is fantastic, and we’re very pleased with it. But it is not us as the developers and publishers driving products to digital – it is because the options for the PC at retail are so limited.

http://www.mcvuk.com...-market-gone-by-2011

[Lashiec]

Heh, the market gone by 2011... Stardock and Valve would like to have a word with this guy.

Blame console makers and big retail chains for not stocking PC games. While there's no actual proof, console makers sure bribe retail chains for preferential retail space, just like it has been done in supermarkets for years with conventional products. Plus, while there's a demand for PC games, it's certainly not as big, and certain big chains are pretty interested in the second hand market, which is far more profitable with console games than with PC games, which due to copy protection and/or Internet activation, are not easy to resale. Also, PC piracy.

That's not to say the digital market will take over physical sales next year. Both Stardock and Valve has stated in the past that, while digital sales are respectable, they are nowhere near the revenue they pull from physical sales in the USA. Not to mention that the PC market is not composed of USA and UK as short-sighted game journalists want to make people think. In Europe it has always been pretty strong, specially in Germany and the old Eastern Bloc, including Russia. Talking about Russia, I don't think it's in the best interest of 1C to see the physical market gone, considering the chain the company operates there ;)

So, well, I don't see the market gone by 2011, but if the guy is poking those big chains to funnel some efforts into promoting PC games, all the better. He could poke those guys at Microsoft as well, which are far more interested into the XBOX 360 these days.

[zridling]

Damn, and I was thinking about getting into gaming in 2012. Figured by then I'd have the money.

[sajman99]

Seems like the typical January wait-til-next-year "story". Most of the time these journalistic seers exaggerate a trend and really miss the mark.

Kinda reminds me of TV weathermen. Rarely do we see them come back the next day and say "Man, was I ever wrong with that prediction!"

[Crush]

I tried some games without boxes. But I don´t like this - and the most of them are not cheaper or have a brutal hardware dependent licencing system that makes changes to other machines or selling them very uncomfortable and sometimes impossible.

Therefore I prefer to buy games in boxes or at least the DVDs with a simple but protecting hull. I love it to dig through my mountains of games and to take a look at the pictures or manuals   - that´s also an important part of the games I´d say. When I think that about 70-80% of the prices is being spend for marketing and distribution I cannot understand why I should pay the same price or even the half for a pure virtual ware that only claims to be in my possession and can hardly be sold afterwards. If the real costs of the producers for development is about 10-20% and I calculate broadminded 5-10% for the hardware and the internet costs for some additional game servers such games should be available at a much cheaper price than they actually are.

The internet distribution is only a trick for the distributors to get more money from selling and I´ll not help them to reach their monetary goals. The big losers are the customers and the developers - they don´t have any advantages from it. The biggest losers are the customers. They have no way to play the games any more if the sellers decide to close their doors (sometimes only to open new ones under a new name freeing from the ballast of the previous company). So your copies are useless and all the spent money is more kinda renting the games for some time. Similar things happened with a big DRM-mp3 portal last year. It closed from one day to another and the honest clients in germany were sitting on DRM-protected music that could not be played or transfered anymore. The only thing was a funny message on the HP saying: We´re sorry for that!

If there will be no games at least in DVD hulls I´ll stop buying new games and concentrate on playing the old ones.

[Edvard]

Damn, and I was thinking about getting into gaming in 2012. Figured by then I'd have the money.

-zridling (January 13, 2010, 05:56 PM)

Zaine.
You're running Linux.
They're free. 

[ljbirns]

FYI

2009 U.S. VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY AND PC GAME SOFTWARE RETAIL SALES REACH $20.2 BILLION
Software Sales Experienced 11 Percent Decline When Compared to 2008

PORT WASHINGTON, NY, January 14, 2010 - According to leading market research company, The NPD Group, U.S. retail sales of video games, which includes portable and console hardware, software and accessories, generated revenues of close to $19.66 billion, an 8 percent decline over the $21.4 billion generated in 2008.

Retail sales in the PC game software industry also experienced declines, with revenues down 23 percent, generating $538 million in 2009. The total console, portable and PC game software industry generated $10.5 billion, an 11 percent decline vs. the $11.7 billion generated in 2008.

“December sales broke all industry records and underscores the incredible value consumers find in computer and video games even in a down economy,” said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association, the trade group which represents U.S. computer and video game publishers. “This is a very strong way to transition into 2010. I anticipate these solid sales numbers to continue upward through 2010 with a pipeline full of highly-anticipated titles.”

Aside from portable hardware which experienced a 6 percent increase in revenue in 2009, all video game categories experienced declines, with the largest decline coming from console hardware (-13 percent). Console software and portable software both experienced declines of 10 percent, while video game accessories experienced a 1 percent decline.
 
"When we started the last decade, video game industry sales, including PC games, totaled $7.98B in 2000," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group. "In ten years, the industry has changed dramatically in many ways, but most importantly it was grown over those years by more than 250 percent at retail alone.  Considering there are many new sources of revenue including subscriptions and digital distribution, industry growth is even more impressive."