The retail game as an endangered species amidst a herd of less expensive, high quality downloads
August 5, 2009You won't find many Xbox 360 owners overflowing with passion and enthusiasm for the recent retail game releases. G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra is a busted and boring version of Contra. King of Fighters XII is a big disappointment with a frustratingly laggy online component. The Watchmen game, for which a retail release was just issued that combines parts 1 and 2, is about as exciting as reading a blank sheet of paper. If somebody wants to put a disc into their Xbox 360, it's going to have to be something released at the start of the summer, say Arc System Works' BlazBlue, Yuke's UFC 2009 Undisputed or Volition's Red Faction: Guerrilla, even reaching back to Capcom's Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5. Or, if the weekly Xbox Live Top 10 figures are any indication, many choose to continue blasting away online in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Gears of War 2, and Halo 3.
Like last year, the most interesting content of the mid to late summer is available as a download. DICE's Battlefield 1943, a scaled-down version of its 2002 PC hit Battlefield 1942, became the fastest selling XBLA game, even performing the impressive feat of vaulting over the Xbox Live top 10 and landing at number five on the overall list, beating out games like Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV and Valve's Left 4 Dead.
A visual representation of Battlefield 1943's sales.
While exact sales figures aren't available for Xbox Live Arcade games, you can try to estimate what probable sales might be. With cross-platform sales of 600,000 at the time Battlefield 1943 became the fastest selling XBLA game and with a majority of the gamers on Xbox Live (based on how quickly Xbox 360 players unlocked Coral Sea), let's say 400,000 were sold to Xbox 360 gamers, which rivals, at least in terms of units sold, the numbers of Prototype (X360), the July top retail performer based on NPD Group's recent numbers. Considering development costs on Battlefield 1943 were likely much lower than Prototype, it's possible profits may be comparable, though the difference between a $15 and $60 price tag creates a giant gap when multiplied across 400,000 copies. Again, very rough estimates.
Battlefield 1943 isn't part of the official Summer of Arcade release schedule, however. Neither is Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers, which continues to rank high in most popular lists, and according to our latest information racked up over 170,000 sales. It's proof that more and more gamers are willing to check out what's new on the Live Arcade, or at least recognize that the best products throughout the month of July have been the downloads, not the discs. There's also the free demo for every XBL game as well, while demos for retail games tend to appear more sporadically, sometimes months after launch.
We're hoping for great things from Shadow Complex.
Looking at the current Summer of Arcade, we've already seen the release of Twisted Pixel's 'Splosion Man and Capcom's Marvel vs. Capcom 2, both of which turned out to be great. While MvC2 was more of a known quantity, 'Splosion Man's simple but addictive platform-puzzle formula seems to be faring well based on its top 10 sales rankings since release. Next up is the reimagining of the beat-em-up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled, a game which didn't turn out so well. Things close out strong, or so I hope, with Trials HD's physics-based puzzles and the Super Metroid-like Shadow Complex from Chair Entertainment.
While it's still too early to make any kind of real assessment until all the products are out, it's obvious so far in 2009 that downloadable products are continuing to grow in importance and popularity. Whether or not this Summer of Arcade can really live up to what came out in 2008, with Number None's Braid establishing itself as a serious game of the year contender, The Behemoth's Castle Crashers providing some of the best side-scrolling co-operative beat-em-up action in modern gaming, and Capcom thrilling fans with its near flawless reworking of Bionic Commando (I'm referencing Rearmed here, just to be clear, not the full retail game, which bombed), remains to be seen. And let's not forget how Bizarre delivered a fantastic sequel with Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, the predecessor for which was wound up having to carry the Xbox Live Arcade and in some ways the Xbox 360 itself through the console's early months after launch.
The question is, will 2009 prove to be an even more important year for Xbox Live Arcade games than ever before? The answer at the moment seems to be yes, since it's no rare occurrence in 2009 that we hear about big budget retail titles being pushed into 2010, from Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption to 2K's BioShock 2. Since it's clear people are happy to stay online with their Halos and their Call of Duties, it would make sense that only something like Bungie's Halo 3: ODST and Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 would be able to attract major buyer interest, especially now considering how crowds of the competition are fleeing into the supposed safety of next year.
With the implementation of Microsoft's games on demand service, being readied for release very soon, gamers will be able to download full Xbox 360 games like Mass Effect, BioShock, Assassin's Creed, and Crackdown. Hopefully this service will eventually be extended so that titles will simultaneously be made available on stores shelves as well as for download, with the download being appropriately discounted to reflect the buyer's decision to pick up something free of the baggage of manufacturing costs. Now if only Microsoft would take the sting out of picking up one of its preposterously priced 120 GB hard drives. We're going to need that space even more
Map packs and other downloads keep people tied to one game instead of exploring the market
I hope this doesn't sound like I'm saying there's little in the way of quality retail products coming out this year for Xbox 360. Gearbox's Borderlands, BioWare's Dragon Age: Origins, Turn 10's Forza Motorsport 3 and Valve's Left 4 Dead 2 are still on the way. And then there are a slew of music rhythm games, which many are still interested in.
Let's also not forget the regular assortment of sports titles that serve as huge revenue drivers on an annual basis. Yet even with titles like these, loyalty to games already owned is being strengthened through regular updates and content releases. Call of Duty: World at War map packs keep people from switching out discs. Progressive leveling and unlock systems for console games keep people chasing goals beyond just racking up kills and winning matches. Communities are becoming more insular and willing to pay for minimal upgrades to what they already own as opposed to paying full price for a new game that may or may not be as enjoyable as what they know and love.
This isn't a new thing. It's been going on since microtransactions, low-priced downloadable items for games like extra character costumes, stages, or weapons, started to really take off in North America, and since the notion of sequels and franchises really started to catch on. It's the reason that after over two decades Final Fantasy is still popular, why people keep buying Madden, and why people sign up for and stay faithful to certain MMOs. Not everybody likes to start from scratch, and people tend to stick with what's familiar. With Xbox Live, there's just more of a viable console model for pricing and distribution than there has been in the past.
Look familiar?
In the world of Xbox 360 gaming this year, with the high degree of quality of many Xbox Live games and the thinning of the holiday release herd, it's a trend that's only going to gain more momentum in the months to come. It's not really a problem with the consumer either, everyone's just trying to be smart with their money, but it'll likely wind up being a bigger and bigger burden for publishers out there without must-have retail games, since consumers will turn to downloads instead of snatching up a lesser known title sitting on a shelf.
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