While 2007 was a great year for the industry, 2008 has blown those results away. November results by the NPD Group stated that total industry sales were $2.91 billion, up 10 percent, with year-to-date sales at $16.04 billion, up 22 percent. While December results haven't been released, we expect them to punctuate the year with an exclamation point.
Considering how depressed other parts of the economy are, the record setting results for 2008 showed how strong the gaming industry is. Plenty of storylines emerged over this record setting year, and we're here to examine the highs and lows of 2008.
Big sequels rule
It almost goes without saying that gaming is dominated by established IPs and franchises that have been sequeled to the moon and back. Still, sequels cast a long shadow over 2008, showing how difficult it can be for new IPs to gain mindshare. We have to wonder if the economy had any effect on this as well, influencing people to make "safe" entertainment choices; of the 45 titles we covered in the past year, only a dozen weren't sequels or spin-offs in some fashion.
"New IPs in particular seem to have the toughest road to hoe during the holidays, fighting for dollars against better known franchises, and even established series cannibalize each other's sales."
Perhaps the most anticipated sequel on the Wii was Super Smash Bros. Brawl and that sold a staggering 2.7 million copies during its first month of availability. Metal Gear Solid 4 was the biggest PS3 title of the year, and shipped 3 million copies in very short order, Call of Duty: World at War showed that the franchise may become "Activision's Madden" and finally, Grand Theft Auto IV simply trumped all other releases (for all entertainment media) in this or any other year.
Releases Spread About the Year, But It's Still Not Enough
For much of 2008, we were ready to write about how the industry has learned its lesson as far as better utilizing a staggered release schedule. Indeed, huge releases like Grand Theft Auto IV, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Metal Gear Solid 4 all came out before July, giving the industry one of its biggest and best front ends in its history. Other smaller but still significant hits like Devil May Cry 4, Turok and Army of Two filled out the first half of the year well, setting 2008 up to be the biggest year in the industry's history.
It is with sadness and dismay, then, that we must instead chastise the industry (or, at least, some major publishers) for backloading their schedule once again. Certain titles thrived during the holiday push, like Fable II, Call of Duty: World at War and Gears of War 2. However, others like Tomb Raider: Underworld, Mirror's Edge and LittleBigPlanet, appeared to flounder a bit. Sure, those titles may have received their share of laurels, but the sales didn't match the critical enthusiasm.
We're not going to pretend that we're the first ones to point this out, but it bears repeating: there are too many game releases during the last three months of the year. The holidays are important for gaming – a trend not likely to stop anytime soon – but that does not mean that publishers need to target most of their game releases for Q4. New IPs in particular seem to have the toughest road to hoe during the holidays, fighting for dollars against better known franchises, and even established series cannibalize each other's sales, as there's only so much money people are going to spend at any one time.
We bring this up, because we look at 2009 and the release schedule (at this point) seems far sparser than in 2008; we can only imagine the sort of success (or, at least, increased attention) some of these titles could have had if they had only been pushed back a few months into this year. It makes little sense to crowd the majority of releases into the same period, especially M-rated titles that presumably aren't for children, so here's hoping that this holiday season beat some sense into major publishers.
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