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Why are big games not selling anymore?
- Thread starter Tahnit
- Start date
People are getting more Savvy with deals, just check deal websites and threads here and Social Media.
They are aware if they wait patiently enough they can get a deal 2-4 months of release, or wait until goty edition (although they are now coming out at full price too See Injustice 2 for example, whears previously youd get the Goty for low price)
Also Steam Sales, Other Key Sites, PSN and Xbox Gold Sales with up to 80% off and free games given, Game Pass, PSNow, EA Access, Twitch Free games, Humble Deals in bundles, Monthly, free other giveaways.
People who want to avoid the Lootboxes and other Rip offs etc
Basically if your buying every New game at full price you are either you really want support the publisher or have too much money & no backlog (or you are a Mug, please don't be a mug)
Last but not least Piracy though after all the above things I mentioned, so many cheap deals why the hell would you pirate games in this day and age? Esp when you can get the game probably around 10-20 bucks or less
So my point is people will still buy these big games, just in their own time
They are aware if they wait patiently enough they can get a deal 2-4 months of release, or wait until goty edition (although they are now coming out at full price too See Injustice 2 for example, whears previously youd get the Goty for low price)
Also Steam Sales, Other Key Sites, PSN and Xbox Gold Sales with up to 80% off and free games given, Game Pass, PSNow, EA Access, Twitch Free games, Humble Deals in bundles, Monthly, free other giveaways.
People who want to avoid the Lootboxes and other Rip offs etc
Basically if your buying every New game at full price you are either you really want support the publisher or have too much money & no backlog (or you are a Mug, please don't be a mug)
Last but not least Piracy though after all the above things I mentioned, so many cheap deals why the hell would you pirate games in this day and age? Esp when you can get the game probably around 10-20 bucks or less
So my point is people will still buy these big games, just in their own time
I don't think this is a terrible point actually, I know my friends who play FPS don't touch dice stuff now but some of them bought bf2 before the big backlash. Definitely not the case w bf5
This is the year a R* game released in. It was always going to be different than the other ones.
Not really sure what you're getting at here, my point was that some veteran IP clearly did better this year than others, and lack of critical acclaim for some titles and high publisher expectations for others mean that it's not just about 'customers sticking with old IP over new IP'. It's more complex that that.
I added to my post that the new IP, Starlink, flopped out of the gate despite huge amounts of promotion and a toyline that gained more merchandising space in every games shop here than most other titles, but it wasn't due to it being new IP or lack of awareness- it was promoted heavily for Switch and had little other competition there in October. The problem was that consumers saw it for what it was- play options hidden behind investment required in 'toys to life', as opposed to how Smash and Pokemon tend to treat Amiibo. Imagine if you had to buy the figure to unlock the characters.
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Or... they'll start making money off of MTX and be more than profitable in the long run. First couple of years for these games wouldn't be the same for games without MTX.
Yeah, you have just picked some underperformimg games and extrapolated to "[all] big games", which is most certainly not the case. God of War and Spiderman both broke sales records this year, for example.
If you want to look more broadly, sales growth has been slowing for games like Cod and Assassin's Creed for a while now. With yearly releases and tonnes of competition that it going to bite eventually.
If you want to look more broadly, sales growth has been slowing for games like Cod and Assassin's Creed for a while now. With yearly releases and tonnes of competition that it going to bite eventually.
Being $30 doesn't always mean that it's selling bad. They're just trying to squeeze as many last second Christmas gifts in before the biggest shopping season of the year is over. After Christmas, it's all downhill.
Huh? Veteran IP? I feel you are overthinking this. They got your money and brain cycles. Tell me what lasts in our new paradigm. No one is talking about Starlink. That's a joke.
I think people saw the panic $30 fire sale for BFV and assume Blops is now having some kind of problem if it is a similar price. But it overlooks the fact that it was selling well for two months before the pricing, not selling below expectations leading to a 50% in all of two weeks. Historically, this is really only a month early for a COD to be seeing promotional pricing. As far back as World at War you could buy the newest COD For $34.99 at Best Buy in January, no GCU needed. I wouldn't be surprised if they're willing to make moves to try to pull in the second wave of purchasers earlier since getting more players lined up for map packs and cosmetics is a huge part of the business proposition. This isn't GTA V, there's going to be another COD next year even if WW3 breaks out in the real world.
I feel that the market for traditional "shelf releases" is gradually fading away. It seems that people are gravitating toward indies (pick random indie darling of the day) or multiplayer games (Fortnite).
I also feel that people are getting sick of these annual/biennial releases.
I also feel that people are getting sick of these annual/biennial releases.
And that was released on the same day as Fallout 4 and was an Xbox One time exclusive, which explains the troubles it had initially. It ended up selling decently, though.
I wouldn't look at discounts as a measure of performance in today's market. If anything retailers are becoming more aggressive to digital. The major games are still selling tens of millions of units.
There have been a handful poor performers including Fallout 76, but is a sign of word of mouth and general quality, which shows me that consumers are becoming better informed and seeking more information before purchase.
There have been a handful poor performers including Fallout 76, but is a sign of word of mouth and general quality, which shows me that consumers are becoming better informed and seeking more information before purchase.
What I think:
Too many games release towards the end of the year.
Many annual releases are underwhelming product-wise, very little differences in gameplay, and people know game prices will drop in a month or so.
Games as a service model doesn't give people the urge to buy a new game right away. If people are consumed in one very fun game there is no need to jump into another game without some sort of investment or interest.
The market is crowded with games targeting players to spend more time playing their games. The battle for our time is now a constant game making tactic to have you play longer so you may eventually spend more money.
People rather spend money on new high quality experiences or types of games that don't regularly come out. Think Single Player games or games that come out once a generation like Red Dead Redemption, Smash Bros, a Zelda game, or Spiderman.
But these titles you listed are all annual release games that always lose their value, needless to say, do gamers really want to spend $60 on a game that will be replaced by the next year with only minor differences or changes to the actual gameplay itself? Without offering substantial change with annual releases, companies are risking the value and sales of their games.
The only thing that changes this formula are when new consoles release, since everyone is replenishing their libraries and want that next gen game to play on their new console.
Too many games release towards the end of the year.
Many annual releases are underwhelming product-wise, very little differences in gameplay, and people know game prices will drop in a month or so.
Games as a service model doesn't give people the urge to buy a new game right away. If people are consumed in one very fun game there is no need to jump into another game without some sort of investment or interest.
The market is crowded with games targeting players to spend more time playing their games. The battle for our time is now a constant game making tactic to have you play longer so you may eventually spend more money.
People rather spend money on new high quality experiences or types of games that don't regularly come out. Think Single Player games or games that come out once a generation like Red Dead Redemption, Smash Bros, a Zelda game, or Spiderman.
But these titles you listed are all annual release games that always lose their value, needless to say, do gamers really want to spend $60 on a game that will be replaced by the next year with only minor differences or changes to the actual gameplay itself? Without offering substantial change with annual releases, companies are risking the value and sales of their games.
The only thing that changes this formula are when new consoles release, since everyone is replenishing their libraries and want that next gen game to play on their new console.
I think the industry needs to start spreading out releases more especially during the summer. The argument against this is that's the time families are on vacation and as such sales are lower etc...but it seems to me it'd be worth it for one or two AA type releases to test the sales waters so to speak. Too many of these games get thrown into the shark infested waters where leviathans like RDR2 and Spidey are just waiting to gobble everything up that's in their path. Alternatively, also put more titles into the early to mid weeks of December. Maybe sales data shows holiday budgets have dried up by this time for most consumers...but do it anyway lol. Something needs to be experimented with so the market isn't so cluttered during this time of year and we end up with only a handful of successes sales-wise, shit just ain't sustainable for the industry as a whole.
This seems anecdotal, seeing as how bad sales has been for a few games in the last two months because a lot of publishers want it out before Black Friday at the risk of losing out on first week sales. Which was made worse with RDR2 out, with Take 2's crazy marketing that drowns other promotions.
Anyway, God of War, BO4, Pokémon, Spider-Man, AC:O, RDR2, Monster Hunter and even Dragon Quest XI sold really really well, with Spider-Man in particular probably set to be PlayStation's most successful game of all time.
Anyway, God of War, BO4, Pokémon, Spider-Man, AC:O, RDR2, Monster Hunter and even Dragon Quest XI sold really really well, with Spider-Man in particular probably set to be PlayStation's most successful game of all time.
Nah, the great thing about Nintendo games isn't that they never drop in price, but that their sell-back prices never drop either. You can buy, for example, Pokémon on launch day, leisurely play through the game, and if after a month or two you don't want to keep it you can sell it for 75% of what you bought it for.
Not the best examples as 76 is an online offshoot plagued with problems. Tomb Raider is always discounted, TR 2013 was heavily discounted not long after launch like Rise and what usually happens is Square will announce it sold multiple millions in a year or two, it might not beat Rottr but I think that's expected. COD has sold well. BFV might be the only one that's took a dive in sales.
If publishers keep saying their games are performing below expectations、eventually they are going to fulfill a self-fulfilling prophecy and spook away investors & shareholders. When the second crash comes、they have no one but themselves to blame.
Black Ops 4 is selling just fine actually. Its price reductions are in line with past CoDs that also sold really well.
Shadow of The Tomb Raider has suffered due to a few factors. Not reviewing as well as past entries, coming out around the time Spider-Man did so it was hard to get attention, and on a smaller level, feeling the effects of the Rise timed exclusivity hurting the growth the series otherwise may have experienced had it not been that way.
Battlefield V is due to mainly three things. The novelty of going back to world war 1 & 2 seemingly wore off quickly with BF 1 and CoD WW2. From what I can tell (I haven't played it) it launched with less than usual content than past games (I could be wrong here as I said, but that's just the impression I've gotten in general). And it seems the crowd that was involved in making the gender stuff a controversy was a sizable enough audience (or have a reach to a sizable audience) that buys Battlefield games.
Fallout 76 is a mess of a game and has probably sold more than it should've honestly.
Shadow of The Tomb Raider has suffered due to a few factors. Not reviewing as well as past entries, coming out around the time Spider-Man did so it was hard to get attention, and on a smaller level, feeling the effects of the Rise timed exclusivity hurting the growth the series otherwise may have experienced had it not been that way.
Battlefield V is due to mainly three things. The novelty of going back to world war 1 & 2 seemingly wore off quickly with BF 1 and CoD WW2. From what I can tell (I haven't played it) it launched with less than usual content than past games (I could be wrong here as I said, but that's just the impression I've gotten in general). And it seems the crowd that was involved in making the gender stuff a controversy was a sizable enough audience (or have a reach to a sizable audience) that buys Battlefield games.
Fallout 76 is a mess of a game and has probably sold more than it should've honestly.
You're still missing my point, which is that it isn't a simplistic 'x games are all failing because x'.
Starlink didn't fail because of lack of interest in new IP. It failed because of lack of interest in its business model combined with mere 'good' reviews in a season of big hitters.
Tomb Raider didn't fail to meet expectations due to waning interest in old IP. It failed because it was a weak entry in a series with insane expectations from the publisher.
Monster Hunter World wasn't a huge success just because it's old IP. It was heavy investment in presentation and rounding out a series famed for its high barrier of entry for a wider audience, had an undercurrent of people knowing it was a great gameplay loop and had massive potential for years, and most importantly (and obviously) was also really, really good.
It's not 'overthinking' to think that each case can't be simplified down to 'customers do/don't like old IP'. I just don't see the pattern that the OP does for 'why are big games not selling' when each case has different causes, big games clearly do still sell and the ones that don't arent exactly the strongest entries in their respective series.
This is a really good point though, and seems closer to the truth when analysing the AAA market rather than 'how old is the IP' when old franchises are having both popular and unpopular entries. Some of the AAA ones are also paid-for £60 live services competing with free ones.
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Games bomb every year, b. It's just that this year there were a few big names that shat the bed. The entire industry moving towards 1-2 big games per publisher doesn't help though. Except for Ubisoft who seems to be the only third-party pub who has no trouble launching new franchises on a semi-consistent basis. With the AAA-space becoming more and more dominated by long-engagement GaaS like GTAV, Siege etc., only the top of the line games will garner the initial sales and recurring MTX revenue. If the next Battlefield fails to reignite the series, it might be worth switching to this model.
Let's also not forget that a lot of AAA games these days thrive off of pre-orders rather than outright sales.
Black Ops 4 sold very well.
Tomb Raider and Battlefield both suffered from poor marketing and/or bad PR before launch.
God of War, Far Cry 5, Spider-Man, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Black Ops 4, Red Dead Redemption 2...
Tomb Raider and Battlefield both suffered from poor marketing and/or bad PR before launch.
God of War, Far Cry 5, Spider-Man, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Black Ops 4, Red Dead Redemption 2...
That's just bad big games are not selling anymore. Like always.
Big publishers like EA or Activision-Blizzard making billion dollars per year. They definitely can afford this.
Battlefield and Tomb Raider had very little hype throughout the entire road to lunch, it's no surprising they didn't sell well. Every AAA sony first party sold amazingly well this year. And yes, November was and would always be red dead month
Because a lot of AAA titles have no reason to exist besides showing a more impressive graphic engine to make up for the repetitive experience.
Game graphic advancements have been minimal in recent years. That's why newer titles fail to impress.
AAA publishers need to go the GAAS route similar to companies like Valve and Blizzard instead of rehashing the same game every year.
BLOPS4 may be the exception because it's a functional (but kind of bland) BR experience unlike most of its competition.
Game graphic advancements have been minimal in recent years. That's why newer titles fail to impress.
AAA publishers need to go the GAAS route similar to companies like Valve and Blizzard instead of rehashing the same game every year.
BLOPS4 may be the exception because it's a functional (but kind of bland) BR experience unlike most of its competition.
Red Dead 2 and Smash are rare games. They don't come out every year, so there's way more hype and demand than say another Battlefield, Tomb Raider, or CoD
I think service games are sucking the market dry.
Many people have no interest in new games because it would cut in their Fortnite (or whatever) time.
Many people have no interest in new games because it would cut in their Fortnite (or whatever) time.
Battlefield's reveal was terrible I thought and it's E3 presence was just a battle royal announcement and 2min trailer... previous E3's had huge attention to Dice games and celebrity/youtube mashups for 64 matches. I think they screwed all that up. Shame since the gameplay is praised and I want to get it sometime in the future.
I've been thinking about this for a while and realized that I myself wouldn't touch those games you mentioned for a number of different reasons.
First off, aside from COD, I don't see the multiplayer FPS genre having the same stranglehold it used to have over the industry. The Fortnites/PUBGs that popped up in the last few years are absolutely dominating the conversation and going back to something like BFV is not what people want. Could be wrong, but I think the only reason COD stayed successful is because it has garnered a huge following over the years that will shell out for the latest games in the series every year not unlike Pokemon.
Second of all, and this only applies to me and a subset of gamers, single player games just have more appeal. I'm not assaulted with a flurry of microtransactions and loot boxes and crap like that when I play my single player games. It's just gaming in the purest sense of the word without all the bs. I think this is a huge part of why RDR2, Spider Man, and Nintendo's First Party titles are selling so well.
Lastly, like everyone here said, unless the huge AAA games get a price hike to like $100, I don't see how the industry can sustain itself churning out $100m after $100m title while barely offsetting the costs in the end. Even GTA will, at one point, cost so much to make that the traditional price won't bring in a ton of profit, despite tens of millions of people buying the game.
I don't know where we're headed with AAA games, but I feel like the industry can't go on at this pace, not unless we stagnate completely on the tech/visuals front, but that's not gonna happen...
First off, aside from COD, I don't see the multiplayer FPS genre having the same stranglehold it used to have over the industry. The Fortnites/PUBGs that popped up in the last few years are absolutely dominating the conversation and going back to something like BFV is not what people want. Could be wrong, but I think the only reason COD stayed successful is because it has garnered a huge following over the years that will shell out for the latest games in the series every year not unlike Pokemon.
Second of all, and this only applies to me and a subset of gamers, single player games just have more appeal. I'm not assaulted with a flurry of microtransactions and loot boxes and crap like that when I play my single player games. It's just gaming in the purest sense of the word without all the bs. I think this is a huge part of why RDR2, Spider Man, and Nintendo's First Party titles are selling so well.
Lastly, like everyone here said, unless the huge AAA games get a price hike to like $100, I don't see how the industry can sustain itself churning out $100m after $100m title while barely offsetting the costs in the end. Even GTA will, at one point, cost so much to make that the traditional price won't bring in a ton of profit, despite tens of millions of people buying the game.
I don't know where we're headed with AAA games, but I feel like the industry can't go on at this pace, not unless we stagnate completely on the tech/visuals front, but that's not gonna happen...
Probably homogenization of franchises and competition within it and games are too big. People skip when they know they've played it too many times before or they don't have time for it or it no longer impresses them.
AAA's obsession with milking franchises inevitably leads to the loss of the "need-to-have" feeling of big popular games. I could never prove this except speak for myself and assume there's other people that see things the same and that group is big enough to matter. Gaming audiences are big and old now. Generations of grown up gamers who make well informed buying decisions is growing.
AAA's obsession with milking franchises inevitably leads to the loss of the "need-to-have" feeling of big popular games. I could never prove this except speak for myself and assume there's other people that see things the same and that group is big enough to matter. Gaming audiences are big and old now. Generations of grown up gamers who make well informed buying decisions is growing.
There's one underlying fundamental issue, especially for MP titles, and a bit more on PC than console
Backloggery. Titles that come out have to compete with everything that's alive today, and backlogs. This means standards for what is playable keep getting higher, and if someone is satisfied, they don't need to change all that much.
GaaS models are getting saturated as well. This model we're under is also fueling the higher game prices (though through GaaS crap like lootboxes), because folks will value "their" game very highly, but other games not much at all, so companies feel a need to get as much as they can outta their core customers.
I don't fear another crash- we have enough stuff out there now that it will be fine.
Backloggery. Titles that come out have to compete with everything that's alive today, and backlogs. This means standards for what is playable keep getting higher, and if someone is satisfied, they don't need to change all that much.
GaaS models are getting saturated as well. This model we're under is also fueling the higher game prices (though through GaaS crap like lootboxes), because folks will value "their" game very highly, but other games not much at all, so companies feel a need to get as much as they can outta their core customers.
I don't fear another crash- we have enough stuff out there now that it will be fine.
Because in the case of Tomb Raider, some games bomb and in the case of Black Ops, some games want you for the long haul so reducing the entry point is worth it if you end up spending way more over time.
All of these games have had a dozen or so entries before it. One of these in particular isn't a very good entry either.
Not selling by who's standards?
Modern big budget games appear to have such absurd expectations pinned on them that anything less than complete domination of the market is seen as a failure.
Was Battlefield selling so poorly this year that EA is going bankrupt, or did it sell well... but not well enough for the business men?
Modern big budget games appear to have such absurd expectations pinned on them that anything less than complete domination of the market is seen as a failure.
Was Battlefield selling so poorly this year that EA is going bankrupt, or did it sell well... but not well enough for the business men?
There's a glut of big games and then there's all these sales with cheap games. If I didnt care for a title, I can easillly wait.