Aquamarine said:
Yes, they are similar. Bethesda has a smaller catalog then Activision Blizzard, but Doom's 521K with high ASPs gave the publisher a good shot in the arm (like $29-$30 million in revenue).
Another interesting macro data point you made that others should take notice of: "Less than 20% of Packaged Software sales in the U.S. are from 1st party publishers."
This figure varies widely. It's not true for the past couple of months, but in general...it's true. An interesting trend to notice is that shares for 1st-party publishers tend to be decreasing over time with their marketshare decreasing in most months (and cumulatively throughout the years), and that 1st-party tends to gain traction in the weaker months as opposed to the Holiday months when they get quickly overshadowed by titles like Call of Duty.
Data |
I am guessing high selling Yearly releases keep the top 6 3rd partys far ahead of all the others, including the 1st party publishers. Then when they release new ips with heavy marketing, the lead is only widened.
For example:
Top 10 best-selling games of 2015:
1. Call of Duty: Black Ops III (XBO, PS4, 360, PS3, PC)
2. Madden NFL 16 (PS4, XBO, 360, PS3)
3. Fallout 4 (PS4, XBO, PC)
4. Star Wars: Battlefront (XBO, PS4, PC)
5. Grand Theft Auto V (PS4, XBO 360, PS3, PC)
6. NBA 2K16 (PS4, XBO, 360, PS3)
7. Minecraft (360, XBO, PS3, PS4)
8. FIFA 16 (PS4, XBO, 360, PS3)
9. Mortal Kombat X (PS4, XBO)
10. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (XBO, PS4, 360, PS3, PC)
Activision: CoD and CoD
EA: Madden and Fifa
Take 2: NBA and GTA V(Not yearly but shows up anyways)
Other high selling yearly releases like Destiny, WWE, EA shooters, Assassins Creed also contribute heavily.
It seems the market loves yearly releases, whether we like it or not. The only thing Sony, Nintendo and MS have close to yearly releases are MLB and Forza. Nintendo also releases a lot of pokemon most years. Small and medium developers simply make games every two years or more and don't often top the charts.
