Despite Whining About Piracy, Secondhand Sales, Video Game Sales At All Time Highs
from the well,-look-at-that... dept
We’ve been noting how both the movie industry and the music industry had terrific years in 2008, despite the public perception being passed around by certain legacy companies in both industries that they were being decimated by “pirates.” Apparently the same is true in the video game industry as well. Dan writes in to let us know that, at least in the UK, video games sales were at a record high, despite all hand wringing about the need for DRM and how piracy and secondhand sales have been destroying the industry. Once again, it seems like if you just put out a good product and give people a reason to buy, they’re more than willing to do so. Still, how long will it be until we hear UK cultural secretary Andy Burnham declaring that the video game industry needs special protection against the scourge of piracy?
Filed Under: competing with free, piracy, uk, video games
Comments on “Despite Whining About Piracy, Secondhand Sales, Video Game Sales At All Time Highs”
Still, how long will it be until we hear UK cultural secretary Andy Burnham declaring that the video game industry needs special protection against the scourge of piracy?
I’d say roughly about election time.
Re: Michael Whitetail
“I’d say roughly about election time.”
You’ve got the wrong end of the stick there. Thats when he’ll start campaigning to ‘protect’ the public from video games.
Re: Re: Michael Whitetail
You’ve got the wrong end of the stick there. Thats when he’ll start campaigning to ‘protect’ the public from video games.
that is sooo 2004. the world is liberal again thanks to all the money raised by the obama campaign. video games are a kerbillion dollar a year industry… it’s an industry that is drenched in income.
conservative christian family values don’t have nearly the kind of profit margins that video games have so clearly the industry needs protection.
in a few years the real estate markets will pick up and the family values crowd will be able to afford legislation again and we will need to protect society from video games, but until then, please think of the developers.
The question is though, is that console games or PC games, and what is the break down? Console games are harder and riskier to pirate.
Jesse
Re: Re:
No they are not, if anythign they are easier to pirate.
Re: Re:
Spoken like someone who has never tried. Pirating a console game really is not that much more difficult than pirating a PC game.
The methods vary, but the most popular is to get a big ol’ hard drive for your XBOX or PlayStation and download the games to it, then you create a launcher that uses another game (one you actually own) to start it. This then allows you to just cycle through your game titles and pick one to play.
As an added bonus, no load times!
Yet another instance as well of the pirated version being better than the original.
Please note I haven’t personally done this, I’ve just known people that do and have seen it first hand. If you can pirate a PC game, you can pirate a console game.
To be fair, most of the whining comes from the PC game developers, while the sales are mostly coming from consoles. Then again, they only have themselves to blame for any downturn in the PC sector. I prefer PC gaming, but I chose to buy Mass Effect, GTA4 and BioShock on the 360 because of DRM concerns. In fact, the only PC game I’ve bought this year were the two WoW expansions, while I’ve bought at least 5 PC games every other year…
Anyway, this has been a bumper year for game quality. It’s actually been hard to keep up with all the high quality games released in the latter half of 2008… hence the high sales.
The UK had best snatch the games up.
While it’s true gaming sales are going strong, the industry is starting to feel the pinch by laying off thousands, closing their doors for good, or possibly in position to be taken over (Disney’s current position regarding EA, the largest game developer).
Personal note: If you thought EA games were bad (but starting to get a little better), if Disney should acquire EA, all hopes for decent games from them is gone forever and you can damn well expect a gajillion Disney ads placed in them).
There is one good side to having some of these studios go away: it opens the door for new ones to emerge. To those thinking of starting up a new gaming studio, please don’t forget about the millions of Wii owners. We’re just dying for anything but minigames!
Ahem. At any rate, gaming’s always going to be a hit-or-miss industry. While some games do sell particularly well, others don’t, and it’s these that don’t which is costing the industry overall.
It will be interesting to see if this “all time high” persists through 2009. It doesn’t look good.
And then you have assclowns like Rockstar games who release a decent game (GTA4) on the console and then unleash a torrent of garbage on the PC gamers with their “port”. It’s a wonder why people who mainly game on the PC pirate games, I mean with top quality like GTA4 coming out or SPORE/BIOSHOCK full of malware…err I mean SecureROM… idiots.
2008 - 2009 the year of pc gaming here is why
Crysis and crysis warhead a pc game has put all fps shooter console shooters to shame
EA’s share holders notice pc gaming mmo’s and under stand why pc gaming is important
The ression push back sony and micro soft consoles and has made the wii king
The best game on the wii is the world of goo a pc game.
Runescape a pc game is more popluar than Hollywood,britney spears and jesscia abla
MMO’s are shing brighter in profit than any console game.
actviion blizzard has become the must important company in gaming in a time of ression. Wow a pc game is holding the company up high
The hotest games are web based kids pc games in a time of ression
Indie pc gaming devs and mod game devs are finaly starting to be noticed.
People are starting to under stand that pc gaming is world wide and govermente and big business are starting to notice.
japan has realise pc game devs are the best in the business
some people may say that 2008 is not the year of pc gaming. But the thing is 2008 is the year of pc gaming. I bet 2009 will be too.
here is why
Console game companies are going bankuprt and it be the pc gaming mods and indie game devs time to shine.
PC MMO’s will be become more important to big software companies in times of resssion
Pc mulitplayer and online pc games will shime in a time of resssion