7 ms·

I'd argue it's not just lockdown. This has been an epic release year: Animal Crossing, Half Life Alyx, Doom Eternal, Gears Tactics, Valorent, Sea of Thieves. An

I'd argue it's not just lockdown. This has been an epic release year: Animal Crossing, Half Life Alyx, Doom Eternal, Gears Tactics, Valorent, Sea of Thieves. And on and on. Paper Mario: Origami King trailer looks like so much fun there is no reason to leave the house this summer ;)

duxup 6y ago
Half Life Alyx Big name, but random googling says Half Life Alyx sold 50k vs.... Animal Crossing at 11 million+ by March 31. I'm not sure Half Life Alyx has any relevance as far as volume of play goes ;)
- xwdv 6y ago
  As a percentage of users on its platform it’s huge.
  - karatestomp 6y ago
    That's the norm on a niche, expensive, enthusiast-dominated gaming platform though, right? Release anything even half-decent (not saying Alyx isn't better than that, mind) and almost everyone buys it, because they must really want to play games on it if they've got the platform, and there's relatively little high-quality content tailored for it (so far).
- filoleg 6y ago
  I think it might have to do with the fact that it is a VR game requiring a VR rig, which isn’t that common yet. Not that you are wrong, but i feel like it would be more interesting to see those numbers in the context of the entire install base. Like, number of sales compared to the number of those devices in people’s hands.
- Grimm1 6y ago
  Off by a factor of 10, looks like it was 500k but still, I think that is a function of VR headset ownership which is only at like 2% of the market or something. Adjusted for the market it was likely pretty big. I grant that within the wider videogame market it is not nearly as relevant though.
  - heelix 6y ago
    And.. even finding a VR headset at MSRP has been a real challenge. The wallet was willing, but the inventory was weak.
    - Grimm1 6y ago
      They are selling out continuously, I have a rift s but still choose to get the notifications when various headsets are in stock and it takes less than 30 minutes for them to sell out again. Supply chain issues from COVID are very real but the demand is pretty apparent regardless
  - city41 6y ago
    Although I’d argue the real goal of Alyx was to entice more people to take the VR plunge. That’s bad luck with the pandemic, as I’m sure the $1k price tag (more if you need a better computer too) is hard to do for many in this climate.
    - zlsa 6y ago
      You don't need the Valve Index to play Half-Life Alyx. Windows Mixed Reality VR headsets can be had for under $300.
      - cactus2093 6y ago
        You still need a gaming PC though, lots of relatively casual gamers (like myself) still only have consoles.
        egypturnash 6y ago
        You need to be able to clear out enough space to wander around a room blindfolded, too. That's really at a premium right now if you're not living alone; kids, roomies, parents, and spouses are all fighting for space in homes that were perfectly adequate when everyone went out to work or school most of the day.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  Girlfriend Reviews said of Alyx "now we are all backseat gamers", regarding the imbalance of people watching the game be played on Twitch vs actually playing it themselves: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m67wYSTgvus https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m67wYSTgvus
  - duxup 6y ago
    I think the gaming world is a lot more fractured than it used to be. Titles that are still big names, I don't think command the % of gamer eyeballs as they used to, or at least not as much. Much like music, movies, pretty much all media.
backtracking 6y ago
Isn't Sea of Theives a two year old game?
- karatestomp 6y ago
  Poster must be a PC gamer who doesn't use the Microsoft store (like most PC users who'd identify as gamers, probably?). It hit Steam this year, was on XBone and MS Store in 2018. Personally, I'd forgotten there was a MS store until I looked this up just now.
  - komali2 6y ago
    And lord was it annoying as fuck to get off Microsoft store. It was something like a 50gb download and it could get version desync, the only way to get around was (in my experience) was to completely wipe it and reinstall. But completely wiping was ALSO super hard to do, because it was saved in like... $APPdata or some weird hidden folder. All this on top of the fact that my c:/ drive is tiny and I want to install my games on an external harddrive. In fact I think I had a double install going at one point. Long story short the microsoft store sucks.
    - karatestomp 6y ago
      I'm glad I've avoided it so far. I already have three stores I use and that's at least one too many, but Epic won't stop showering me with free games (I've bought one and have a library of... 30ish? Maybe more?) so I keep them around for now.
    - VRay 6y ago
      I'm surprised that the %APPDATA% folder is so mysterious and confusing for someone posting on HackerNews in good faith..
      - BorgHunter 6y ago
        I would certainly find it mysterious and confusing to find a game installed to %APPDATA%, and I've been a PC gamer for over two decades. Saved games and config files, sure, possibly mods too, but if a game installed somewhere without asking first I'd expect it to be in %PROGRAMFILES% or %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%. Either way, as the owner of a PC with multiple SSDs I'd be somewhat miffed by not being asked first where the game should be installed, as I put most of my games on my D: drive, which is much larger (but slower) than my C: drive.
MaximumMadness 6y ago
Unfortunately, I'd expect this to slow down :( Tons of companies have announced delays due to Work from Home conditions, and with E3 cancelled developers aren't under as much pressure to rush out announcements and release dates
- willis936 6y ago
  Idk. cdProjektRed has a good track record. There is a lot of marketing money still being spent, and subsequent hype being built, on/for Cyberpunk 2077.
- electroqueen 6y ago
  My team doesn't seem to have lost much productivity
OedipusRex 6y ago
Sea of Thieves came out in 2018. Paper Mario: Origami King was announced yesterday.
aerovistae 6y ago
Didn't Sea of Thieves originally come out in 2016? What are you talking about?
iEchoic 6y ago
The Final Fantasy VII remake has been huge, too.
grawprog 6y ago
I dunno, i've been playing a lot more video games than I have in years and none of them are new releases. I spent about a month on Dark Souls, another on Bloodborne, now Bloodstained and The Messenger. None of those were released this year and i've bought all of them in the last couple months.
- rotexo 6y ago
  Exactly. I just bought a Switch Lite and I'm playing Breath of the Wild for the first time. It has been 15+ years since I played a Zelda game seriously (last one I played was Wind Waker), and I am just blown away. I'm lucky to be working, but the child in me wishes I was on summer break.
- sixothree 6y ago
  Likewise. But gaming feels more pointless to me than ever. I have a hard time describing it. But games that lack a clear goal and don't guide you towards that goal are where I feel it the most. For in instance Cities Skylines building out cities leaves me feeling empty instead of accomplished. I used to treat Skylines and Civ like solitaire - play a few hours mindlessly to burn away a bit of time. But even solitaire would probably not leave me feeling like this. Playing lately Phoenix Wright, Cities Skylines, Alien Isolation (snagged it at $2), RDR2.
  - grawprog 6y ago
    >For in instance Cities Skylines building out cities leaves me feeling empty instead of accomplished. Actually, I understand exactly what you mean. I spent yesterday trying that game. I ended up getting it for free. In the beginning it was fun, I was excited to watch the city grow. By the time I finished, I felt like I'd just wasted hours doing absolutely nothing. Everything was shallow and pointless. Didn't help that all the stuff I wanted to do and thought I might be able to do was stuff that was locked behind a bunch of dlc, that I didn't find out about until I'd gotten kind of sick of it and read a bit about the game.
    - mercer 6y ago
astura 6y ago
Additionally pretty much all of my friends have been super hyped for a few other recent releases: Streets of Rage 4 and FFVII Remake. One friend even mentioned he hasn't been nearly this excited about video games since childhood. There's a few new releases I'd like to get, but I'm too busy with the games I already have, so I'm holding off. Lockdown has increased video game consumption beyond newer releases, the price of Wii consoles and Wii Sports has increased, for example, which shows an increased demand for a console that came out 14 years ago. So it's a combination of a strong new releases, a big reduction in options for other leisure activities, and literally millions of newly unemployed people.
- oarabbus_ 6y ago
  Streets of Rage 4 got me back into gaming after a couple years away from it. It's still not SOR2, but one of the best sequels ever.
  - astura 6y ago
    I don't play beat-em-ups, but I heard good things about the River City Ransom sequel/spin-off River City Girls that came out a few months back.
ls612 6y ago
And the second half of the year is stacked too with CP2077, Valhalla, Godfall, and a Hollow Knight sequel at least. And there’s going to be more big titles announced at the E3 substitute events in the next month or so. And the next gen consoles will launch in the fall.
- thejynxed 6y ago
  Dying Light 2, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2, quite possibly Baldur's Gate 3 (Larian also said announcements concerning their Divinity series are coming), Crusader Kings 3, this year is looking to rob my wallet and my time.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    > Crusader Kings 3 I never thought I'd have child-like excitement for an upcoming game again until I entered the world of Paradox.
- runevault 6y ago
  Since you mentioned Hollow Knight: Silksong, it's also worth keeping an eye on Axiom Verge 2, as AV was another excellent roguelite (HK was better but AV was still very good to great)
pmarreck 6y ago
It’s amazing that the market is so big that I’ve only played ONE of those games (Doom, and only briefly... It’s not grabbing me for whatever reason) as a self-professed gamer (mostly action-RPG’s and stealth/strategy games) Lately I’ve been playing Wolfenstein Youngblood in co-op with a friend on the Left Coast, and Phantom Doctrine also (neither of which are new games), and having a blast with both. Animal Crossing... I just don’t understand the appeal
- the_snooze 6y ago
  >Animal Crossing... I just don’t understand the appeal It's basically The Sims mashed up with Minecraft mashed up with a cute animal aesthetic. Those things are insanely popular, but it's totally understandable that they're not universally appealing either.
reaperducer 6y ago
I'd argue it's not just lockdown I saw a news article a couple of weeks ago that in my city, Xboxes, Switches and PlayStations are very hard to come by. I don't think people are dropping hundreds of dollars mid-cycle to buy new machines for the games. To a much lesser extent, I have done this, too. My local used video game store started doing free home delivery, and I picked up a half-dozen Atari 2600 carts that were missing from my collection. But for me, in addition to needing the distraction a game provides, I need the comfort and familiarity of the big wood-grain beast and simple joysticks.
- gbear605 6y ago
  I know that Switches were sold out even before the lockdowns thanks to Animal Crossing.
- noarchy 6y ago
  I would even say it is nearing end-cycle for consoles, given that we'll see a next-gen Xbox and PS by the end of this year.
  - wayoutthere 6y ago
    Historically, console cycles tend to overlap significantly; and I actually think the next-gen consoles will see very slow adoption curves. There's not that much difference between the current gen Series X/Pro and next gen from a capability standpoint, and the business model has shifted to where the games themselves are the platforms (Minecraft, Fortnite, Overwatch, etc). Exclusives don't move systems the way they used to (unless you're Nintendo).
    - Talanes 6y ago
      And the market has seen enough console release cycles now that the average consumer knows the first releases will an even smaller jump than the system will be able to hit with more mature development.
ekianjo 6y ago
No ffvii remake in your list?
pgt 6y ago
No, it's the lockdown. I haven't played games in 10 years. But during lockdown here in South Africa, the only way to stay in touch with my friends 20km away is to have a fat chat on Discord and play some games.
s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
As a Gears fan, Gears Tactics is a money grab. Gears 5 was CoDified, still happily playing Gears 4 though. MCC for PC just came out. Can't believe I can play Halo 2 again!
- WillPostForFood 6y ago
  No way a turn based tactical game is money grab. More like a niche nod to hardcore fans. They haven't even released it on consoles yet.
kosei 6y ago
As someone who works in the video games industry, I can guarantee it is the lockdown. Stay at home orders align really closely with significant lifts in new players, increased hours played, and many other core metrics across the industry. And many games have seen significant lifts in their existing live service performance (not just new games).
- gambiting 6y ago
  I also work in games and I can confirm this too - even our older games which had dwindling player numbers have gotten a massive increase in player numbers in the last 2 months. In some cases we've had to spool up our network infrastructure to levels higher than at launch, since the numbers are so high.
- SamuelAdams 6y ago
  Also could be a large uptick in unemployment. Lots more people sitting at home with nothing to do. Games are on sale most the time and can be had for 10-15 dollars on steam. That's the same price as a case of beer in some places and you get far more entertainment hours out of a video game than a six pack.
  - TAForObvReasons 6y ago
    Uptick in console sales (far more expensive than $10-15) suggest money isn't the sole motivating factor. If it really were, you'd expect people to flock to netflix and other streaming services which are cheaper
- bentcorner 6y ago
  At least personally part of it is that I also have more hours in the day due to no commute that I can spend on other things, including gaming.
puranjay 6y ago
I don't think it's just that. People are just buying more. I run a smallish hobby site and monetize it with Amazon affiliate links. I've had Black Friday-tier sales all of April and May. I suspect Amazon's numbers for this quarter are going to surprise a lot of people
- huntertwo 6y ago
  Congrats on your success, I suspect they're not gonna be surprising for many. People can't spend in stores and are home all day, Amazon seems like a natural, almost obvious, winner. People who haven't seen a downturn in income have seen a reduction in places where they can spend money, not a reduction in reason to spend money.
  - pyromine 6y ago
    That's not entirely true, expectations are not solely based on "I have a job" they are also based on the expectation of "Can I get a new job if I lose my job" among other complexities, there will certainly be a reduction in marginal propensity to consume even among those who have maintained their employment. So yes, Amazon may well be a winner because of the shift, but they are winning a larger fraction of a smaller pie.
zemo 6y ago
I'm sure it differs from company to company, but I work on the multiplayer servers at Jackbox games and it's very clear that people are playing a lot more than they were at this time period last year.
- termarks 6y ago
  My entire family and many friends play the entire Jackbox games, over Zoom. Jackbox 3 (with Trivia Murder Party and Quiplash) is the undisputed favorite. I ended up buying all six Jackbox game sets, because demand to play is so high. I’m kinda surprised Jackbox servers aren’t melting down with the demand.
koheripbal 6y ago
Most of those games are not that good. Uptick in traffic is perfectly correlated to school closings.
guevara 6y ago
Meh, nothing exciting. Doom 2016 v Doom Eternal: same shit Valorant: it's in beta so I'll give it some slack but it's pretty boring Half Life: Alyx: a VR game. lol Valve. Much rather get a Source 2 update for CSGO Atleast GTA V is free on the Epic store.
- smabie 6y ago
  I dunno man, Valorant is pretty sick. Me and my friends play maybe 3-4 matches of competitive Valorant per day and we absolutely love it. Way better than CS:GO, though the maps aren't as good. And what's wrong with Alyx being a VR game?
jiscariot 6y ago
Disco Elysium too--A unique text-heavy RPG with some great writing and other character elements/buffs I haven't seen before. I'm usually a selective console gamer--maybe three or for titles a year, but got Disco running on a seven year old Macbook, and I'm loving it.

duxup 6y ago

Half Life Alyx Big name, but random googling says Half Life Alyx sold 50k vs.... Animal Crossing at 11 million+ by March 31. I'm not sure Half Life Alyx has any relevance as far as volume of play goes ;)

xwdv 6y ago
As a percentage of users on its platform it’s huge.
- karatestomp 6y ago
  That's the norm on a niche, expensive, enthusiast-dominated gaming platform though, right? Release anything even half-decent (not saying Alyx isn't better than that, mind) and almost everyone buys it, because they must really want to play games on it if they've got the platform, and there's relatively little high-quality content tailored for it (so far).
filoleg 6y ago
I think it might have to do with the fact that it is a VR game requiring a VR rig, which isn’t that common yet. Not that you are wrong, but i feel like it would be more interesting to see those numbers in the context of the entire install base. Like, number of sales compared to the number of those devices in people’s hands.
Grimm1 6y ago
Off by a factor of 10, looks like it was 500k but still, I think that is a function of VR headset ownership which is only at like 2% of the market or something. Adjusted for the market it was likely pretty big. I grant that within the wider videogame market it is not nearly as relevant though.
- heelix 6y ago
  And.. even finding a VR headset at MSRP has been a real challenge. The wallet was willing, but the inventory was weak.
  - Grimm1 6y ago
    They are selling out continuously, I have a rift s but still choose to get the notifications when various headsets are in stock and it takes less than 30 minutes for them to sell out again. Supply chain issues from COVID are very real but the demand is pretty apparent regardless
- city41 6y ago
  Although I’d argue the real goal of Alyx was to entice more people to take the VR plunge. That’s bad luck with the pandemic, as I’m sure the $1k price tag (more if you need a better computer too) is hard to do for many in this climate.
  - zlsa 6y ago
    You don't need the Valve Index to play Half-Life Alyx. Windows Mixed Reality VR headsets can be had for under $300.
    - cactus2093 6y ago
      You still need a gaming PC though, lots of relatively casual gamers (like myself) still only have consoles.
      - egypturnash 6y ago
        You need to be able to clear out enough space to wander around a room blindfolded, too. That's really at a premium right now if you're not living alone; kids, roomies, parents, and spouses are all fighting for space in homes that were perfectly adequate when everyone went out to work or school most of the day.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mikepurvis 6y ago
Girlfriend Reviews said of Alyx "now we are all backseat gamers", regarding the imbalance of people watching the game be played on Twitch vs actually playing it themselves: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m67wYSTgvus https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m67wYSTgvus
- duxup 6y ago
  I think the gaming world is a lot more fractured than it used to be. Titles that are still big names, I don't think command the % of gamer eyeballs as they used to, or at least not as much. Much like music, movies, pretty much all media.

backtracking 6y ago

Isn't Sea of Theives a two year old game?

karatestomp 6y ago
Poster must be a PC gamer who doesn't use the Microsoft store (like most PC users who'd identify as gamers, probably?). It hit Steam this year, was on XBone and MS Store in 2018. Personally, I'd forgotten there was a MS store until I looked this up just now.
- komali2 6y ago
  And lord was it annoying as fuck to get off Microsoft store. It was something like a 50gb download and it could get version desync, the only way to get around was (in my experience) was to completely wipe it and reinstall. But completely wiping was ALSO super hard to do, because it was saved in like... $APPdata or some weird hidden folder. All this on top of the fact that my c:/ drive is tiny and I want to install my games on an external harddrive. In fact I think I had a double install going at one point. Long story short the microsoft store sucks.
  - karatestomp 6y ago
    I'm glad I've avoided it so far. I already have three stores I use and that's at least one too many, but Epic won't stop showering me with free games (I've bought one and have a library of... 30ish? Maybe more?) so I keep them around for now.
  - VRay 6y ago
    I'm surprised that the %APPDATA% folder is so mysterious and confusing for someone posting on HackerNews in good faith..
    - BorgHunter 6y ago
      I would certainly find it mysterious and confusing to find a game installed to %APPDATA%, and I've been a PC gamer for over two decades. Saved games and config files, sure, possibly mods too, but if a game installed somewhere without asking first I'd expect it to be in %PROGRAMFILES% or %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%. Either way, as the owner of a PC with multiple SSDs I'd be somewhat miffed by not being asked first where the game should be installed, as I put most of my games on my D: drive, which is much larger (but slower) than my C: drive.

MaximumMadness 6y ago

Unfortunately, I'd expect this to slow down :( Tons of companies have announced delays due to Work from Home conditions, and with E3 cancelled developers aren't under as much pressure to rush out announcements and release dates

willis936 6y ago
Idk. cdProjektRed has a good track record. There is a lot of marketing money still being spent, and subsequent hype being built, on/for Cyberpunk 2077.
electroqueen 6y ago
My team doesn't seem to have lost much productivity

OedipusRex 6y ago

Sea of Thieves came out in 2018. Paper Mario: Origami King was announced yesterday.

aerovistae 6y ago

Didn't Sea of Thieves originally come out in 2016? What are you talking about?

iEchoic 6y ago

The Final Fantasy VII remake has been huge, too.

grawprog 6y ago

I dunno, i've been playing a lot more video games than I have in years and none of them are new releases. I spent about a month on Dark Souls, another on Bloodborne, now Bloodstained and The Messenger. None of those were released this year and i've bought all of them in the last couple months.

rotexo 6y ago
Exactly. I just bought a Switch Lite and I'm playing Breath of the Wild for the first time. It has been 15+ years since I played a Zelda game seriously (last one I played was Wind Waker), and I am just blown away. I'm lucky to be working, but the child in me wishes I was on summer break.
sixothree 6y ago
Likewise. But gaming feels more pointless to me than ever. I have a hard time describing it. But games that lack a clear goal and don't guide you towards that goal are where I feel it the most. For in instance Cities Skylines building out cities leaves me feeling empty instead of accomplished. I used to treat Skylines and Civ like solitaire - play a few hours mindlessly to burn away a bit of time. But even solitaire would probably not leave me feeling like this. Playing lately Phoenix Wright, Cities Skylines, Alien Isolation (snagged it at $2), RDR2.
- grawprog 6y ago
  >For in instance Cities Skylines building out cities leaves me feeling empty instead of accomplished. Actually, I understand exactly what you mean. I spent yesterday trying that game. I ended up getting it for free. In the beginning it was fun, I was excited to watch the city grow. By the time I finished, I felt like I'd just wasted hours doing absolutely nothing. Everything was shallow and pointless. Didn't help that all the stuff I wanted to do and thought I might be able to do was stuff that was locked behind a bunch of dlc, that I didn't find out about until I'd gotten kind of sick of it and read a bit about the game.
  - mercer 6y ago

astura 6y ago

Additionally pretty much all of my friends have been super hyped for a few other recent releases: Streets of Rage 4 and FFVII Remake. One friend even mentioned he hasn't been nearly this excited about video games since childhood. There's a few new releases I'd like to get, but I'm too busy with the games I already have, so I'm holding off. Lockdown has increased video game consumption beyond newer releases, the price of Wii consoles and Wii Sports has increased, for example, which shows an increased demand for a console that came out 14 years ago. So it's a combination of a strong new releases, a big reduction in options for other leisure activities, and literally millions of newly unemployed people.

oarabbus_ 6y ago
Streets of Rage 4 got me back into gaming after a couple years away from it. It's still not SOR2, but one of the best sequels ever.
- astura 6y ago
  I don't play beat-em-ups, but I heard good things about the River City Ransom sequel/spin-off River City Girls that came out a few months back.

ls612 6y ago

And the second half of the year is stacked too with CP2077, Valhalla, Godfall, and a Hollow Knight sequel at least. And there’s going to be more big titles announced at the E3 substitute events in the next month or so. And the next gen consoles will launch in the fall.

thejynxed 6y ago
Dying Light 2, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2, quite possibly Baldur's Gate 3 (Larian also said announcements concerning their Divinity series are coming), Crusader Kings 3, this year is looking to rob my wallet and my time.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  > Crusader Kings 3 I never thought I'd have child-like excitement for an upcoming game again until I entered the world of Paradox.
runevault 6y ago
Since you mentioned Hollow Knight: Silksong, it's also worth keeping an eye on Axiom Verge 2, as AV was another excellent roguelite (HK was better but AV was still very good to great)

pmarreck 6y ago

It’s amazing that the market is so big that I’ve only played ONE of those games (Doom, and only briefly... It’s not grabbing me for whatever reason) as a self-professed gamer (mostly action-RPG’s and stealth/strategy games) Lately I’ve been playing Wolfenstein Youngblood in co-op with a friend on the Left Coast, and Phantom Doctrine also (neither of which are new games), and having a blast with both. Animal Crossing... I just don’t understand the appeal

the_snooze 6y ago
>Animal Crossing... I just don’t understand the appeal It's basically The Sims mashed up with Minecraft mashed up with a cute animal aesthetic. Those things are insanely popular, but it's totally understandable that they're not universally appealing either.

reaperducer 6y ago

I'd argue it's not just lockdown I saw a news article a couple of weeks ago that in my city, Xboxes, Switches and PlayStations are very hard to come by. I don't think people are dropping hundreds of dollars mid-cycle to buy new machines for the games. To a much lesser extent, I have done this, too. My local used video game store started doing free home delivery, and I picked up a half-dozen Atari 2600 carts that were missing from my collection. But for me, in addition to needing the distraction a game provides, I need the comfort and familiarity of the big wood-grain beast and simple joysticks.

gbear605 6y ago
I know that Switches were sold out even before the lockdowns thanks to Animal Crossing.
noarchy 6y ago
I would even say it is nearing end-cycle for consoles, given that we'll see a next-gen Xbox and PS by the end of this year.
- wayoutthere 6y ago
  Historically, console cycles tend to overlap significantly; and I actually think the next-gen consoles will see very slow adoption curves. There's not that much difference between the current gen Series X/Pro and next gen from a capability standpoint, and the business model has shifted to where the games themselves are the platforms (Minecraft, Fortnite, Overwatch, etc). Exclusives don't move systems the way they used to (unless you're Nintendo).
  - Talanes 6y ago
    And the market has seen enough console release cycles now that the average consumer knows the first releases will an even smaller jump than the system will be able to hit with more mature development.

ekianjo 6y ago

No ffvii remake in your list?

pgt 6y ago

No, it's the lockdown. I haven't played games in 10 years. But during lockdown here in South Africa, the only way to stay in touch with my friends 20km away is to have a fat chat on Discord and play some games.

s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago

As a Gears fan, Gears Tactics is a money grab. Gears 5 was CoDified, still happily playing Gears 4 though. MCC for PC just came out. Can't believe I can play Halo 2 again!

WillPostForFood 6y ago
No way a turn based tactical game is money grab. More like a niche nod to hardcore fans. They haven't even released it on consoles yet.

kosei 6y ago

As someone who works in the video games industry, I can guarantee it is the lockdown. Stay at home orders align really closely with significant lifts in new players, increased hours played, and many other core metrics across the industry. And many games have seen significant lifts in their existing live service performance (not just new games).

gambiting 6y ago
I also work in games and I can confirm this too - even our older games which had dwindling player numbers have gotten a massive increase in player numbers in the last 2 months. In some cases we've had to spool up our network infrastructure to levels higher than at launch, since the numbers are so high.
SamuelAdams 6y ago
Also could be a large uptick in unemployment. Lots more people sitting at home with nothing to do. Games are on sale most the time and can be had for 10-15 dollars on steam. That's the same price as a case of beer in some places and you get far more entertainment hours out of a video game than a six pack.
- TAForObvReasons 6y ago
  Uptick in console sales (far more expensive than $10-15) suggest money isn't the sole motivating factor. If it really were, you'd expect people to flock to netflix and other streaming services which are cheaper
bentcorner 6y ago
At least personally part of it is that I also have more hours in the day due to no commute that I can spend on other things, including gaming.

puranjay 6y ago

I don't think it's just that. People are just buying more. I run a smallish hobby site and monetize it with Amazon affiliate links. I've had Black Friday-tier sales all of April and May. I suspect Amazon's numbers for this quarter are going to surprise a lot of people

huntertwo 6y ago
Congrats on your success, I suspect they're not gonna be surprising for many. People can't spend in stores and are home all day, Amazon seems like a natural, almost obvious, winner. People who haven't seen a downturn in income have seen a reduction in places where they can spend money, not a reduction in reason to spend money.
- pyromine 6y ago
  That's not entirely true, expectations are not solely based on "I have a job" they are also based on the expectation of "Can I get a new job if I lose my job" among other complexities, there will certainly be a reduction in marginal propensity to consume even among those who have maintained their employment. So yes, Amazon may well be a winner because of the shift, but they are winning a larger fraction of a smaller pie.

zemo 6y ago

I'm sure it differs from company to company, but I work on the multiplayer servers at Jackbox games and it's very clear that people are playing a lot more than they were at this time period last year.

termarks 6y ago
My entire family and many friends play the entire Jackbox games, over Zoom. Jackbox 3 (with Trivia Murder Party and Quiplash) is the undisputed favorite. I ended up buying all six Jackbox game sets, because demand to play is so high. I’m kinda surprised Jackbox servers aren’t melting down with the demand.

koheripbal 6y ago

Most of those games are not that good. Uptick in traffic is perfectly correlated to school closings.

guevara 6y ago

Meh, nothing exciting. Doom 2016 v Doom Eternal: same shit Valorant: it's in beta so I'll give it some slack but it's pretty boring Half Life: Alyx: a VR game. lol Valve. Much rather get a Source 2 update for CSGO Atleast GTA V is free on the Epic store.

smabie 6y ago
I dunno man, Valorant is pretty sick. Me and my friends play maybe 3-4 matches of competitive Valorant per day and we absolutely love it. Way better than CS:GO, though the maps aren't as good. And what's wrong with Alyx being a VR game?

jiscariot 6y ago

Disco Elysium too--A unique text-heavy RPG with some great writing and other character elements/buffs I haven't seen before. I'm usually a selective console gamer--maybe three or for titles a year, but got Disco running on a seven year old Macbook, and I'm loving it.