Posts tagged: Video Games

A Collective Sigh Of Relief

Last week, when The NPD Group posted video game industry sales results for March, one could almost hear the collective sigh of relief among stakeholders; that after a fairly long drought, there was some good news to report.  The industry recorded a gain of 6 percent in total revenues generated, and along with that top line gain, several records were noted as well.  For me, it’s always more fun to report good news than bad, so here are just a few of the stories pulled from analysis of the data:

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Here Comes The Sun?

The highly anticipated video game industry sales results for September have now been delivered, and many who were expecting a bigger increase over last year’s results, were underwhelmed by the numbers. The industry did return to positive territory after six consecutive months of posting declines, but the increase was a modest 1 percent.

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The Kids Are Alright

Kids.  I spend a lot of time thinking about them.  Not only do I have four of my own under the age of 12, but the two industries I cover count kids as a primary target audience:  33% of video game industry dollar sales since May ‘08 have been spent against kids ages 14 and under while this same group comprised 82% of 2008 toy industry dollar sales.  With both of these industries representing approximately $22 billion in annual sales; that’s a lot of spending influenced by kids across those two industries alone. 

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It’s All About Mom…

When I least expected it, BAM! Something hit me over the head like the proverbial ton of bricks. I was sitting at a conference in January listening to a panel discussion on kids and their use of the Internet. As usual, Internet safety concerns came up time and time again. Amongst the largely PC panelists, one more outspoken gentleman was talking about what kids were really doing on the Internet, and the pains they take to hide these things from their parents, especially their mothers. While moms rule the household and largely set the rules and cultural agendas, dads will tell great stories about the things they got away with when THEY were kids, and most likely rebel against mom’s household rules themselves. And that’s when it hit me - I am totally un-cool.

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