Gaming in the Media Blog

Yet another industy has caught on to the idea that anything negative can be blamed on gaming.

 Apparently, the gaming world is now sucking the wind out of big-box office openings.  The coveted 18-34 male market is sitting at home playing Halo instead of watching “The HeartBreak Kid.”

 The Punk Marketing Blog explains why this theory is full of it:

Poor box office on opening weekend for new Ben Stiller movie, ‘The Heartbreak Kid,’ is being blamed on the huge success of Halo 3, the third in the series of Halo video games by Microsoft Corp’s video game division.

Halo 3 sold $170 million in its first 24 hours of sales when it was launched on September 26, beating out previous record-holder movie Spiderman 3 for the title as biggest entertainment launch ever (of course Spidey 3 was a piece of crap, so it was just a matter of time). This shows how so NOT niche video games now are - they are going head to head with more traditional (read ‘dull’) forms of entertainment competing for the attention and pocket money of the fickle youths. And winning.

‘The Heartbreak Kid’ made $14million in its opening weekend, versus an expected $20-25million. And overall, box office receipts in October is down down down - it’s lowest level since 1999. Studio execs have been wondering aloud whether the success of Halo 3 can be blamed for the lackluster performance.

But we think there might be another explanation. Crap movies.

 I second them on the crap movies.  Halo launched September 26th, so the mad new-game-must-conquer high has pretty much worn off.  Even the most hardcore gamers can peel themselves away from the TV to go out for a few hours.

That is, if they are properly motivated.

 And I doubt that The Heartbreak Kid qualifies as proper motivation.  It actually looks more like a Netflix to me…

Advertising Age (hat tip to AdRants) has recently announced that GameStop will begin a nationwide campaign targeted to gamers:

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Gamers, the power is in your hands.

GameStop’s ads from Richards Group were produced using the ‘machinima’ technique.

That’s the message behind the first national campaign from GameStop Corp., breaking Oct. 1. The multimillion dollar push — which sees the video-game and software retailer adopting a new tagline, “Power to the Players” — is the work of the retailer’s first agency of record, Richards Group, Dallas, which was appointed to the account earlier this year.

‘Machinima’ technique
Components of the campaign include print and TV (to appear in Maxim, Rolling Stone and ESPN magazines, and Comedy Central, Spike, and MTV networks, among others) as well as online and viral. The TV spots were produced using the “machinima” technique — a production style that blends computer-generated imagery with filmmaking — and feature video-game characters who promote unique aspects of the brand, such as the store’s trade-in policy and the inside information available through GameStop’s magazine, Game Informer.

“For us, it’s really a brand now that comes under one umbrella,” said Thomas A. DeNapoli, VP-marketing for GameStop. The message “will have an impact in every functional area within our company. … It’s not just an ad campaign.”

Grapevine, Texas-based GameStop operates nearly 5,000 stores in 16 countries, and last year posted $5.3 billion in revenue.

Looks like I will not get a chance to see the ads, since the campaign for gamers is hard slanted to capture the male gaming market.  Hopefully, this is the first run of a multi-prong effort to advertise to gamers, and they didn’t intentionally exclude growing markets for gamers on purpose…

Is there a such thing as gaming on a budget? With the record breaking prices on consoles, the litany of games released every year, and the amount spent per game, building gaming into a normal budget is difficult enough.

However, as gaming software gets more sophisticated, it seems like prices per game will begin trending up as well.

Matt Matthews from Next Generation analyzes the issue:

Now, 20-odd months on from the Xbox 360’s launch and half a year into the PlayStation 3’s life, we ask how the $60 game experiment is going. Are consumers buying those higher priced games?

We’ve analyzed prices of the top selling games for the past three years, with a special focus on the last 12 months, to get an idea of whether those more expensive games are selling well.

Our conclusions are as follows…

1. Prior to 2007, the average prices for the top 20 games was around $40-$43.
2. During the first half of 2007, prices for the top 20 games has been around $46-$49, without including Guitar Hero II. With Guitar Hero II, included prices are measurably above $50.
3. As the Xbox 360 library expands, it will claim more and more high-priced games in the top 20 list.
4. As Wii games replace PlayStation 2 games in the charts, it will keep the floor of console game prices right at $50.
5. The last two points will together force the average price of top selling games well above $50 in the near future.
6. The only downward pressure on average game prices is coming from the Nintendo DS.

So are consumers buying those $60 games? Yes, they are, and at an increasing pace. Here’s the detailed evidence…

I highly recommend reading the rest of the articles for the in-depth analysis of price trends.

Personally, I’ve become accustomed to dropping $60 on titles that I enjoy - the gameplay value per hour, especially on RPGs, makes it worth it for me.

Plus, thrifty gamers always have Ebay, Blockbuster, and Gamefly.

GameDailyBiz published some interesting findings from Nielsen last week, which provided a direct correlation between income level and console purchases:

Nielsen today released its first round of data from its new GamePlay Metrics service used to measure PC and console video game usage. There were a number of interesting findings and tidbits, but perhaps the most interesting was that despite all the hype surrounding the new consoles, the PS2 remains the most played system today. Sony’s aging console accounted for 42 percent of video game console usage during June. This was followed by the original Xbox at 17 percent, the 360 at 8 percent, GameCube at 5.8 percent, Wii at 4 percent, and PS3 at 1.5 percent. Nielsen also found from a demographics standpoint that Wii households are typically “upscale” with incomes of $100,000 or more – ironic, considering that Nintendo’s console is the cheapest of the new systems.

I would call that way ironic. How is the cheapest system the one who lands in the most affluent households?

However, thinking about it a bit more, the Wii is breaking records in terms of usage. Maybe affluent people who do not recognize themselves as gamers want to use and play the Wii. The diverse line of titles and the lower dollar investment to play is enticing to many people. Maybe the affluent are just more money savvy and want a console system that will not break the bank?

Suddenly, the findings do not look so strange after all.