It’s a common complaint from gamers: there are just too damn many games coming out between October and December to give time to them all. But just how many games are there at Christmas? More »
Picture the scene: your mum walks into GameStop. She walks to the Xbox 360 section, and picks out a game for your birthday. At random. What are the odds she picks a good one?
The video game industry racked up impressive sales in 2008, pulling in more than $21 billion in sales in the United States alone. That makes for a similarly impressive marketing tab.
Uh, oops. Over the weekend, Forbes ran an article citing data obtained from Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR). Forbes’ article said that, according to EEDAR, only 4% of games ever make a profit. Wha? 4%? Sounded silly. Seems it was silly. Forbes mis-quoted EEDAR’s data, which actually says that only 4% of all games that ever enter into production make a profit. Sounds like a case of semantics, but it’s a key difference. Just like movies, most games that enter into production never actually see the light of day. Of those that do make it onto store shelves, it turns out 20% of them return a “significant profit”. That sounds more like it. EEDAR’s full correction follows.
