GamesIndustry.biz - Preorders in Decline

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GamesIndustry.biz has a new article about the decline of pre-orders, and how it's affecting the entire gaming industry. Not surprising really.

Activision Publishing president says reservations are no longer the most important pre-launch performance predictor

Bungie's upcoming shooter Destiny is on track to be the most preordered new intellectual property in gaming history, but Activision Publishing president and CEO Eric Hirshberg isn't putting as much stock in that as one might expect. Speaking to investors during a post-earning conference call today, Hirshberg said preorders just don't mean as much as they used to.

"It's also important to sort of reset expectations as it relates to preorders overall," Hirshberg said. "You guys can see the same thing we see industry-wide, which is that there's been sort of a secular downturn as it relates to preorders. We think that's happening due to a number of factors: Things like increased digital consumption, particularly on the next-gen consoles; titles being widely available on day one; and the decline overall for demand of software on the previous gen consoles."

As a result, Hirshberg said other metrics like awareness and purchase intent have become even more important than the number of preorders. Fortunately for Activision, Hirshberg said both of those measures are at all-time highs and climbing for Destiny when compared to any other new intellectual property at this point ahead of its release.



Later in the call, Hirshberg discussed Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare preorders, saying the series is "not immune" to the downward trend. However, he expects the series to lead the industry in reservations once again this year. He also noted that purchase intent for Advanced Warfare is significantly above last year's Call of Duty: Ghosts, and "actually in line with our past top performing titles."
More information.
 
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I would like to think it's the mass answer by consumers who are tired of being handed unfinished, bug-filled products for which they paid full price— and that most are going to wait several weeks after release now for the stuff to get fixed, along with the first DLC addition to coincide with a likely Steam sale.

But that's probably not it.
 
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There is probably multiple factors at work. It might also just be that people are tired of buying the same exact game every year too (less or more).
 
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My pre-order decline has to do with the unimpressive quality of games that gets rolled out at big publishers these days + DLC trend. I'll just wait for the complete package on sale.
 
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A secular downturn? So... no religion involved then? What's the point of saying that, other than to sound obtuse?
 
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I would like to think it's the mass answer by consumers who are tired of being handed unfinished, bug-filled products for which they paid full price— and that most are going to wait several weeks after release now for the stuff to get fixed, along with the first DLC addition to coincide with a likely Steam sale.

But that's probably not it.

Nah, instead of buying a Pre-order, people Kickstart a game or buy Early Access with equally disastrous results and in the end nothing is gained. It's just a shift to new marketing terminology, but you're still either paying up front and wait ages for the game, or you can play the bug ridden alpha version and can't expect quality because it's an alpha.
 
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Poor, poor Activision.

The actual surprise is that it wasn't EA to reveal this trend. Sims 3 retail preorders were IIRC about a million copies in USA. Maybe I don't remember well the actual number but I do remember it was something like that. And today? On Sims 4? Less than 100K:
http://www.vgchartz.com/preorders/41854/USA/
Okay, it's too early to say, but the total definetly won't reach a million.

I do preorders and I do a lot of preorders. But when someone disappoints me with a game I've preordered, sorry, not preordering your next game. If Activision CEO can't understand that, well, he can keep whining and continue doing nothing about games quality.
 
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Poor, poor Activision.

The actual surprise is that it wasn't EA to reveal this trend.

That's because the "trend" is not affecting all the publishers. There is a guy in the comments on GamesIndustry.biz that mention this.
 
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