Bad times for the games industry

[theantmeister]

Just from today's news:

GAME Group struggles under financial pressure
HMV 'still committed to games'
Capcom Losing Buckets of Money
Sony posts £1.3 billion quarterly loss
EA 'concerned' with GAME financial problems
THQ to cut 240 jobs, CEO takes 50% pay cut

What's going on here? Is this the games industry just feeling the pinch from the global recession? Or has the bubble burst? Game's problem's could be down to people not buying from high street stores, but the others?

[DPrinny]

GAME Group struggles under financial pressure - People now wait for games prices to drop
HMV 'still committed to games' - Urgh, expensive
Capcom Losing Buckets of Money = Probably due to everybody waiting for the updates rather than buying the first version
Sony posts £1.3 billion quarterly loss - See hacking
EA 'concerned' with GAME financial problems >EA
THQ to cut 240 jobs, CEO takes 50% pay cut -You cant make a living off WWE games and shite

[Flint]

EA being worried about GAME is pretty funny considering that they introduced those stupid online passes due to the pre-owned market, biting the hand that feeds you ?

[DPrinny]

^EA can easily make there money back by bringing out another game with Fifa on the box.
Fifa 12 turbo

[QuantumCrayons]

^EA can easily make there money back by bringing out another game with Fifa on the box.
Fifa 12 turbo

Force the customer to buy the numbered jerseys in DLC.

[Fightersmegamix]

I don't see GAME going out of business as bad for the industry, in fact it will have the opposite effect. A pity for the people that will lose their jobs but it will have little impact overall, online for cheap prices and independent shops for the high street.

Sony are losing out due to floods at a factory and it is the company as a whole not just the gaming division. Quarterly results will go up and down depending on what games are released.

[famicom69]

Game stores pre-owned policy is aids. HMV would probably get more sales if they didn't over charge and blast terrible pop music as loud as possible throughout the store. I and a lot of other people would have forked out for a 3DS if Megaman Legends 3 got a release, alas. I don't want another industry crash but it may well happen if we get more COD, DLC, digital distribution, piracy measures, the rip off mentality censored state that is the used market and the death of the high street.

On the positive though there are some fantastic games and imports on the way this year and GTA5 will no doubt bump up the takings. Even if it all goes tits up my retro backlog is never-ending, this generation will probably be my last

[QuantumCrayons]

I don't see GAME going out of business as bad for the industry, in fact it will have the opposite effect. A pity for the people that will lose their jobs but it will have little impact overall, online for cheap prices and independent shops for the high street.

As soon as physical retailers shut down, who has the monopoly that they currently have? The online shops. Eventually, we'll see the same problem (possibly years down the line) and we'll have nowhere left to turn, but to hand over £40 for each and every game.
Or hey, they might be nice to us

[DreamcastRIP]

Sony are losing out due to floods at a factory and it is the company as a whole not just the gaming division. Quarterly results will go up and down depending on what games are released.

Spot-on. Sony as a whole has been on a downward spiral for a number of years now.

Five year share price record -
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=SNE+ ... =undefined

For example, things are reputedly so bad with their TV business that several industry experts have been stating it's a matter of when, not if, Sony quit making TVs altogether.

Sony's gaming division is doing reasonably okay,
"The firm sold 6.5 million PS3s during the quarter, up from 6.3 million a year earlier, as well as 2.4 million PSPs, down from 3.6 million, and 900,000 PS2s, down from 2.1 million. It also sold 66.2 million PS3 games, up from 57.6 million during the same period last year, 11.4 million PSP titles, down from 16.5 million, and 2.5 million PS2 games, down from 5.3 million."

[Fightersmegamix]

As soon as physical retailers shut down, who has the monopoly that they currently have? The online shops. Eventually, we'll see the same problem (possibly years down the line) and we'll have nowhere left to turn, but to hand over £40 for each and every game.
Or hey, they might be nice to us

Amazon and play have a lot more clout than GAME and they have a much more varied business, so are not as reliant on one area for sales. You could argue there may one day be a monopoly, but that applies to everything and is a problem with our economic system.

[Mootown]

I posted this in a different thread, but here's a few points to consider:

A lot of niche titles only get distributed due to GAME group and their share of the market - For example, a Koei game - if GAME didn't support a buy-in they wouldn't be able to support the cost to bring a niche title out as the other retailers don't take enough stock.

If GAME went out of business (and no-one replaced them) a lot of smaller, more specialist publishers would get into trouble as well. The amount GAME buy of stock wouldn't automatically translate across into other retailers. For example, Amazon wouldn't automatically go 'oh yeah, GAME used to take 10,000 units, so we'll take that now!'

I know that on certain titles GAME can get over 70% share of the market, in fact I've seen some 90%'s before.

The bigger publishers certainly wouldn't love it either - the Grocers would start to command a better position and god knows what will happen to the market then.

Also a large amount of transactions through GAME group use trade-in - customers use their old games to afford new ones. Without this mechanic, less new games would be sold as people couldn't afford them. Doing trade-in online isn't as instant as being able to walk into a store.

As big as EA are, the fact is GAME group buy-in the most stock and achieve the highest sell-through by a large chunk.

No publisher wants GAME to go out of business - even if you never buy anything from GAME, you shouldn't either if you don't want to find that the latest CAVE game isn't being sold in the UK due to not enough demand from retail...

Bear in mind I'm not saying GAME is a great retail experience, I'm not saying I support the GAME pricing structure, or that other retailers aren't better. In fact I'm not offering my opinion of any retailers, just figured it was worth posting the above as food for thought.

[AmigaJay]

It's not bad times for the games industry, its just forever changing times...software/hardware companies come and go, retail outlets come and go.....nothing to worry about in general...well unless you work for GAME or THQ maybe lol.

[The Laird]

My thoughts:

GAME Group struggles under financial pressure - Arrogant retailer that have been crap for years
HMV 'still committed to games' - I have always liked going HMV would be a shame to see them go
Capcom Losing Buckets of Money - Stop releasing endless Streetfighter games then!
Sony posts £1.3 billion quarterly loss - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA
EA 'concerned' with GAME financial problems - EA concerned that they can't pay anyone else to push endless versions of FIFA
THQ to cut 240 jobs, CEO takes 50% pay cut - THQ have always sucked arse so its a surprise they are even still in business

[slacey1070]

It's not bad times for the games industry, its just forever changing times...software/hardware companies come and go, retail outlets come and go.....nothing to worry about in general...well unless you work for GAME or THQ maybe lol.

Its bad times in general. double dip recession, rising unemployment, cost of weekly shop increasing, pay cuts/pay freezes.

What was one of the first things I cut? Gaming spend. I can live without games....

The gaming industry seemed to think it would escape what the rest of the world was feeling - welcome to the year 2012.

EA being concerned is probably as much to do with the fact that if Game goes pop, there will be a lot of unpaid invoices.

[RetroBob]

Said it on the other other thread about this topic - but I think there's a slow industry crash going on.