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US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

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Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#81

Post by vorpalhex »

k__ wrote: post #55

Half-OT: Currently I'm playing Stardew Valley on my FireHD10, I never played a mobile port that had THAT good controls. I also got Terraria and Minecraft and they are pretty bad to play with awkward on-screen controls. Does anyone here know of games that have good mobile ports? Or even good mobile games to start with? Most "native" mobile games just were really basic, full of in-app purchases etc. so I was looking mo…

There's a bunch of cheap bluetooth mini game controllers you can pickup online that will make a lot of ports (and emulators) quite a bit more enjoyable. RPGs from the playstation days are my go to.

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#82

Post by billfruit »

Grimm1 wrote: post #23
daxorid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gardening, home improvements, personal or side development projects, exercise, online courses, playing music, etc. There are plenty of activities to do that moves one's life forward, rather than the utter stagnation that is television and video games. edit: To be clear, leisure activities definitely have their place. But to loosely paraphrase JC, while playing games is fine, it's much better to make them.

Your thinking is so antiquated name me a good novel and I'll give a video game that matches it in narrative content. And playing music and gardening? Please.

While I don't agree with any attempt to see games as lower form of culture, I don't think that story telling/ narrative is something that games do well.

I personally find narratives in games actually detract from the experience, and many games are better from having no or only minimal story built into it, and more like being sandboxes:

-Cities: Skylines

-Just Cause 2

-Prison Architect

-Kerbal Space Program

-Pool Nation

-Blood Bowl

-Hexcells

-Sins of a Solar Empire

-Elite: Dangerous

-Dungeons of the Endless

-Rocket League

-Sonic Allstars Racing

Literature has immensely more complex narratives than it is likely possible for films and games can hope to achieve. But to be able to provide interactive sandboxes with unlimited possibilities is perhaps one that only games can provide.

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#83

Post by grawprog »

sixothree wrote: post #78
grawprog wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, i've been playing a lot more video games than I have in years and none of them are new releases. I spent about a month on Dark Souls, another on Bloodborne, now Bloodstained and The Messenger. None of those were released this year and i've bought all of them in the last couple months.

Likewise. But gaming feels more pointless to me than ever. I have a hard time describing it. But games that lack a clear goal and don't guide you towards that goal are where I feel it the most. For in instance Cities Skylines building out cities leaves me feeling empty instead of accomplished. I used to treat Skylines and Civ like solitaire - play a few hours mindlessly to burn away a bit of time. But even solitaire…

>For in instance Cities Skylines building out cities leaves me feeling empty instead of accomplished.

Actually, I understand exactly what you mean. I spent yesterday trying that game. I ended up getting it for free. In the beginning it was fun, I was excited to watch the city grow. By the time I finished, I felt like I'd just wasted hours doing absolutely nothing. Everything was shallow and pointless. Didn't help that all the stuff I wanted to do and thought I might be able to do was stuff that was locked behind a bunch of dlc, that I didn't find out about until I'd gotten kind of sick of it and read a bit about the game.

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#84

Post by vorpalhex »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #54
mey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wife is an Animal Crossing convert entirely due to Covid. She played zero video games on a regular basis before that. I expect she will put it back down as other recreation options become available again, but I doubt she is the only one to pick up a new hobby. This is going to go on long enough for new habits to stick. Animal crossing in particular has exceptionally soft failure modes so it's great for people who are…

Actually Animal Crossing removes the element of failure deliberately to provide a soothing, un-stressful experience. There isn’t even a counter for how many bugs and fishes you still could catch in the current season. There was a thread recently here about the associated genre Iyashikei. The success of this game should be quite interesting for video game makers who traditionally address and compete for a very narrow…

Games like Stardew hit this note too. What many so-called "casual"[^1] gamers are after isn't less game but a game that is more focused on having an experience and experiencing things.

[^1]: The casual/hardcore gamer distinction is a really weird dichotomy that doesn't make any sense because there's probably a set of axis akin to Bartlet types that more accurately describes videogame consumption

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#85

Post by user5994461 »

barbecue_sauce wrote: post #52
Grimm1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off by a factor of 10, looks like it was 500k but still, I think that is a function of VR headset ownership which is only at like 2% of the market or something. Adjusted for the market it was likely pretty big. I grant that within the wider videogame market it is not nearly as relevant though.

SteamSpy figures put it at 1,000,000+ but I don't think they're that reliable.

I just had a look and sales must be around 2 million so far. Confidence interval 1-3 million.

It's easy to estimate roughly from the steam data that is publicly available.

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#86

Post by ls612 »

ArtWomb wrote: post #3

I'd argue it's not just lockdown. This has been an epic release year: Animal Crossing, Half Life Alyx, Doom Eternal, Gears Tactics, Valorent, Sea of Thieves. And on and on. Paper Mario: Origami King trailer looks like so much fun there is no reason to leave the house this summer ;)

And the second half of the year is stacked too with CP2077, Valhalla, Godfall, and a Hollow Knight sequel at least. And there’s going to be more big titles announced at the E3 substitute events in the next month or so. And the next gen consoles will launch in the fall.

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#87

Post by MayeulC »

k__ wrote: post #55

Half-OT: Currently I'm playing Stardew Valley on my FireHD10, I never played a mobile port that had THAT good controls. I also got Terraria and Minecraft and they are pretty bad to play with awkward on-screen controls. Does anyone here know of games that have good mobile ports? Or even good mobile games to start with? Most "native" mobile games just were really basic, full of in-app purchases etc. so I was looking mo…

You can also look at mobile games that got a desktop port, as that should hint at good quality games. On the top of my head, I recall the Anomaly (Warzone: Earth) series, and Kingdom Rush.

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#88

Post by trynewideas »

ping_pong wrote: post #4

I've bought several games for the Switch for my kids, including Animal Crossings. I don't understand it, but anything to keep them quiet for an hour (or three). One question I have is, is this revenue rate sustainable or it is an unnatural pump that will die out in a couple of years? Once people can go outside without fear I'm thinking that it won't be a long term investment.

> is this revenue rate sustainable or it is an unnatural pump that will die out in a couple of years?

The revenue rate already isn't sustainable for anyone who isn't Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft (and as the story notes, Nintendo won the quarter in part by taking enough business this quarter from Sony and Microsoft for them to end _down_ even with some big announcements and releases).

There's a real fear in studios that between the pandemic, unemployment spikes, expenses in moving to remote work coming before savings from getting rid of offices, and the broader economic malaise, this represents the last bit of inflation before wallets close for years and the games industry bubble pops for many, many studios.

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#89

Post by AmVess »

Grimm1 wrote: post #15
duxup wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half Life Alyx Big name, but random googling says Half Life Alyx sold 50k vs.... Animal Crossing at 11 million+ by March 31. I'm not sure Half Life Alyx has any relevance as far as volume of play goes ;)

Off by a factor of 10, looks like it was 500k but still, I think that is a function of VR headset ownership which is only at like 2% of the market or something. Adjusted for the market it was likely pretty big. I grant that within the wider videogame market it is not nearly as relevant though.

Pretty good guess. 1.91% of people who have Steam accounts have a VR headset. Up .62% with the release of the new HL game.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Re: US video game sales have record quarter as consumers stay at home

#90

Post by pmarreck »

ArtWomb wrote: post #3

I'd argue it's not just lockdown. This has been an epic release year: Animal Crossing, Half Life Alyx, Doom Eternal, Gears Tactics, Valorent, Sea of Thieves. And on and on. Paper Mario: Origami King trailer looks like so much fun there is no reason to leave the house this summer ;)

It’s amazing that the market is so big that I’ve only played ONE of those games (Doom, and only briefly... It’s not grabbing me for whatever reason) as a self-professed gamer (mostly action-RPG’s and stealth/strategy games)

Lately I’ve been playing Wolfenstein Youngblood in co-op with a friend on the Left Coast, and Phantom Doctrine also (neither of which are new games), and having a blast with both.

Animal Crossing... I just don’t understand the appeal

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