Casual Gamers Dragging Down the Industry, says EEDAR

I don't understand how casual gamers are dragging down the industry sales. This is a market segment that continues to grow in size. Perhaps hardcore gamers are less enthusiastic about paying $60 for every new title when there are new titles available for download, aimed at hardcore gamers, that go for $20 or less (Torchlight, for instance). If Mr. Divnich is disappointed by lack of sales, yet at the same time says that core gaming sales are healthy, he's contradicting himself and the facts. NPD's figures show lower console sales; I don't see how that's attributable to casual gamers. Maybe he has a different definition of "casual gamer"; perhaps he means "gamers who don't buy a lot of games". Which is a circular definition, thus not adding any information to the discussion.

Sales are down because games and hardware, overall, aren't selling as well. Perhaps due to the current economic conditions and a dearth of hugely compelling titles. I think the market is basically saying it doesn't have as much money to spend on games, so games either need to cost less or be more compelling to cause wallets to open. It's great to wish for some amazing new peripheral or innovative game, but that sort of lightning can't be generated at will. What publishers can do, however, is figure out how to spend less to create games and lower price points to generate some sales. Digital distribution offers hope, but actualizing that hope will require tectonic shifts in business models for most major publishers.

Mr. Divnich needs to further clarify his stance or redo his analysis.

To say that casual gamers are dragging down the industry is a very skewed view.

Just a few years ago, the casual gaming market really didn't exist. We seen sales grow due to new revenue being generated from the growth of the casual gaming demographics. But it's no mystery that casual gamers likely won't buy as many games as core gamers do, and they likely don't want to pay $60 for a game. Data I have seen suggests that they are still buying games, but fewer than the core market, and that has held steady. So you have two distinct markets now, that should be measured differently.

If he's trying to come up with a reason why sales are dropping in the gaming industry from last year it's likely because other potential reasons:

1. The economy is having an effect.

2. Sales from hot genres in the past, which really pushed up overall sales for the industry, are losing steam, specifically the music genre.

3. Casual gamers and even some core gamers are spending more time playing games that NPD doesn't track. Like MMORPGs. Or social games like Mafia Wars. Handheld gamers could also be shifting to play the iPhone, which also isn't tracked by NPD.

4. Last year, we had some really big titles come out in typically slow months. This year, from spring through summer, there were few blockbuster games. This dry spell was much more pronounced on the Wii.

In addition, the analyst needs to be clear what the "Industry" is. This analysis only covers console sales, and data tracked by NPD. That to me is not the whole industry.

For console and handheld sales, the casual genres are down significantly over last year. The core genres (Shooters, RPGs, etc, etc) are up a healthy amount.

That's all I meant. This does not take into account MMORPGs (BTW, MMORPG activity through other industry reports are not reporting any significant increases) nor does it include social games (which have lower sales per use and likely don't make up for the deficit).

John is right, there are many markets at play here, unfortunately, accurate data only exists for one of them. Consoles and handhelds...for now.

There is a serious lack of accounting for the amount of free gaming that is going on on Facebook.
Zynga alone accounts for (wait for it) 150,000,000 players a month!
No need to buy any games! Also, in the download space the traditional casual games prices are dropping like stones. Where a year ago you could pay $19 for a download game from Big Fish Games, we're now seeing the same game sell for 6.99. Lastly, we have the iPhone/iTouch driving down the value of the game.
It's a great time to be a game player for sure! There are more places to play games, for cheaper and of higher quality than ever. I would not want to be a traditional publisher however.
For social gaming coverage check out http://blog.games.com