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Video Gaming growing more than Movies, Music
Figures show that sales in the gaming industry grew more than any other part of the entertainment sector in 2007.
By Nick 'nickh' Hamilton
Jan 25, 2008 12:46
Figures show that sales in the gaming industry grew more than any other part of the entertainment sector in 2007.According to The Entertainment Software Association, the number of sales within the video game industry for 2007 totalled at around $18.5 billion; with $9.5 billion of that being spent on games alone, and the remaining $9.35 billion being spent on games consoles. That's an increase of 28.4% since 2006.
The introduction of the Nintendo Wii last year gave a big boost to the console market, with sales of console games far outweighing the sales of PC games. Console game sales took up about 70% of the $9.5 billion market. Hand-held gaming devices also hit a record high last year, with $2.0 billion being spent on games for them.
The CEO of ESA, Michael D. Gallagher has said the following about these figures; "The video game industry set the pace over all others in 2007, with record-breaking sales, off-the-charts consumer demand, and innovation reaching from galactic exploration to guitar simulation. On average, an astonishing 9 games were sold every second of every day of the year."
The music and movie industries both saw very little, or even negative growth in sales last year, with the movie industry only growing by 1.8% on their $9.49 billion revenue in 2006. The music industry suffered in even worse fate still, with the sales revenue falling by an estimated 10% since 2006:
So things are looking even brighter for the gaming industry, with an increase of 28.4% in sales revenue since 2006, this year can only carry on that trend and help the industry continue to grow even further.
Source: ArsTechnica.com
The introduction of the Nintendo Wii last year gave a big boost to the console market, with sales of console games far outweighing the sales of PC games. Console game sales took up about 70% of the $9.5 billion market. Hand-held gaming devices also hit a record high last year, with $2.0 billion being spent on games for them.
"On average, an astonishing 9 games were sold every second of every day of the year."
The CEO of ESA, Michael D. Gallagher has said the following about these figures; "The video game industry set the pace over all others in 2007, with record-breaking sales, off-the-charts consumer demand, and innovation reaching from galactic exploration to guitar simulation. On average, an astonishing 9 games were sold every second of every day of the year."
The music and movie industries both saw very little, or even negative growth in sales last year, with the movie industry only growing by 1.8% on their $9.49 billion revenue in 2006. The music industry suffered in even worse fate still, with the sales revenue falling by an estimated 10% since 2006:
So things are looking even brighter for the gaming industry, with an increase of 28.4% in sales revenue since 2006, this year can only carry on that trend and help the industry continue to grow even further.
Source: ArsTechnica.com
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gaming industry will adopt the consoles of course because that way they can minimize the impact of piracy .. it's interesting because for instane i'm used to dowload almost every game i ever played and now that i got a ps3 i know i will have to pay for games and that stinks :D
i want to cheat of course and not pay for games but i cant with a ps3 or a wii ou xbox and they know that so if they focus all the good games for consoles (halo is a exemple) people will have to buy the consoles for the best games and that is difficult with music/movies
dont know why i bother but where's my 2 cents :D
Nintendo Wii.
Then games like:
Assassin's Creed, Halo 3, to name just two which i can remember at the moment xD.
Music, when it comes to numbers of sale, is only gonna get lower, since it's just so darn easy to download stuff, cause of the small files.
Movies, sure, it can still get bigger, with the new Blueray formats and all, it's still gonna be annoying for a while to download movies in large quanitites because of the pure size of the movies.
But both of the industries have been around for a long time, but Video Games haven't.
So it's just obvious it's gonna be bigger and bigger since the technology of the computers & games are just so insanly fast.
Still rather nice to see the improvement from 2006 - 2007.
Supposed to be "since the technological improvements* of the...."
There are just way too many different add-ons that needs to be counted in.
Games have different platforms to run on, different computers etc.
Music have their sound systems to be played on, movies their TVs, projectors and sound systems, DVD players, etc etc.
Did they count in cinema in the movie chart? It's not listed if they did. And the music chart is based out of information that haven't even been published.
This article, and its source, is based single handedly on X amount of games/movies/albums/ into Y amount of money.
It's by far not a viable chart IN MY OPPINION, to compare with anything.
If it was to be done properly you'd have to include everything that the industries produce.
People involved, pre-production budget, x amount of produced producs into y amount of sold products, and so on. And that, is not even possible, by far.
I'll probably get flamed to the stone age and back now, but it's just what I think. Make no mistake, I think it's great, and the evidence is there, that the gaming buisness is growing. But I think it's wrong to compare three so different industries based on such a small amount of facts.
The bare facts are that there are very few games which are seen as comparable to even mediocre movies/music in terms of revenue. I'm talking very few, the likes of Halo might gross enough to catch the eye of the traditional press, but Halo is one game.
The reason why everyone is taking an interest is because games (if they are successful) have high margins (at the moment). A typical game sells for around 30 pounds and can be developed for less than it would cost a movie company to pay one world class actor. But development cycles will increase, the need for better (and more expensive) staff will also increase in order produce these sort of titles thus negating the high margin and making the industry more comparable to the others.
Although I may appear to be a kill joy, it's always nice to see how reliable the internet media is about technology issues. Music downloads rose by 40% in 2007 (IFPI), just to reinforce the point.
$958,404,152 - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
$937,000,866 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Halo 3 only made $4 million more on its opening day than the new Harry Potter book, and $560 million altogether. With the next generation of consoles (assuming they continue with their aesthetic only policy) I'd say any advantage we have will be wiped out.