Japan Sales Week 39, 2014 (September 22 - 28)

[Mummelmann]

Ka-pi96 said:

Mummelmann said:

Ah, see; I already knew that!

Legs in general in games today is a rarity; it has become more and more front-loaded and we're seeing massive first week sales that lead up to rather unimpressive (relatively speaking) lifetime sales many times in the last decade or so.

I wonder why that is though. More people buying used? People buying digitally? Or maybe the quantity of games and advertising nowadays means people just buy the next big thing instead of a game from a couple of months ago.

I think it's the overall movement in the entertainment industry in general; the pace has increased, people line up for hardware (phones especially), people queue all week for movie tickets, pre-orders are a big thing with developers throwing in bonus content etc, there are more revisions and mountains of add-on's and extensions in both hardware and software. The broader it is, the faster it moves (markets, that is).

The modern consumer electronics customer is quickly bored, it seems, and static products like consoles are forced to do revisions and bait capaigns to maintain momentum (look at the 3DS frantically re-inventing itself more or less every year just to keep its head above the water for an example). We're even seeing the gaming industry adopting more smart-device like strategies in offering "free" content or bonus content on purchases, not unlike subsidiaries and "all-inclusive" subscriptions for modern phones.

Why people are in such a hurry though, is beyond me...