Gamasutra - Why Gamasutra is skipping monthly NPD reports.
NPD obviously knows the importance of tracking and reporting revenues from digital venues, such as paid downloads, subscriptions, mobile, etc., as well as used game and rental revenue: The company now includes monthly estimates for these streams. But the way that publishers and digital distributors like Steam lock down their sales data, it's hard to imagine anyone making accurate estimations of sales by title, or even overall digital sales.
The fact that NPD only focuses on U.S. sales is also an issue -- some of the biggest players on digital platforms are internationally-operating companies like Blizzard, Riot, Supercell, DeNA and Rovio.
Additionally, a while back NPD stopped reporting on software unit sales in its monthly report, leaving us questioning for some time, "What's the point?" So as editor, I need to ask myself if the monthly NPD figures paint a truthful picture of the video game industry -- does conveying monthly NPD releases to our readers help in their day-to-day decisions? I have to say "no." I've seen on Twitter and in Gamasutra comments that a lot of our readers also answer "no." Even the president of the Entertainment Software Association, Michael Gallagher, agrees that the monthly NPD U.S. retail figures hold little value these days.
As a resource for the game industry, it's not enough for Gamasutra to disclaim monthly NPD articles in the phrase, "Keep in mind, these are only physical, new U.S. retail sales." We probably should have stopped running the figures (particularly the software sales figures) a little while ago, honestly.
Sepharo wrote on Jun 18, 2013, 20:44:
people just want to know what the top selling games are overall.
Orogogus wrote on Jun 18, 2013, 14:51:
That's not his argument, or rather the argument of the post he liked:
"...that the numbers are US only, of course they are, last time I checked, the US where a big single territory for video games with some importance. Madden NFL simply doesn't sell outside the US, nonetheless it's a big title and Microsoft is currently preparing a console, by many considered as being US centric,, but I think Gamasutra won't skip reports about Madden or the Xbox One."
The US is a big territory, but not so big that the other territories are utterly negligible. Japan can float a ton of RPGs, and Europe can support their sports games without the US.
If you're positing that the games industry is in its death throes, as ASeven does all the time and is almost certainly doing here, and point to the 44% decline, then yes, you should take international and digital download numbers into account. Otherwise you're ignoring a sports franchise bigger than Madden because it doesn't move in the US.
It doesn't make sense for Sony to focus only on sales in Japan, and not being in the ad business, I don't see that it makes sense for us to focus on sales only in the US. People posting here aren't even the main demographic represented in those numbers, or else people would be kinder to Call of Duty and Angry Birds.
Also, several posters aren't in the US, so there's that as well, and I assume the same applies to Gamasutra's readership.
theyarecomingforyou wrote on Jun 18, 2013, 13:24:
@ASeven - I don't see why you like that reply, as it completely misses the point. NPD's software report is dependent upon only the physical sales in the US. That means not only does it ignore Europe (which surpassed the US in video game sales more than five years ago) but also digital distribution, which makes up a significant portion of the market (if not the majority). As for the hardware numbers, of course they'll be reported as they're still accurate (at least a lot more so than the software numbers).
Software sales haven't declined by 44% since 2000 and the fact that NPD suggests that's the case demonstrates how hopelessly inaccurate it is.
eRe4s3r wrote on Jun 18, 2013, 14:18:
Not just ignoring Europe but also Asia....