The UK games retail industry continues to suffer from low sales volumes. MCV gaming industry news site reports that the market fell 38 per cent during May. However the 38 per cent decline appears to be a year-on-year figure rather than a comparison with the sales from the previous month. Overall, during the month, 1.8 million games were sold, generating £45.5 million in revenue.
The biggest selling games in the UK during May were Rockstar's Max Payne 3 and Activision's Diablo 3. Even though Diablo 3 broke all previous first week PC sales records it trailed Max Payne 3 in the all format charts supplied by GfK Chart Track.
If you want to see the current standings in the UK all-format charts you can go here to the GfK Chart Track site and take a peek. The top five titles are currently Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Max Payne 3, FIFA 12, Battlefield 3 and Sniper Elite v2. Lots of sequels there! The latest US charts I can find list their top five titles as Diablo 3, Max Payne 3, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Prototype 2 and NBA 2K12. In the US retail market sales were also down, but by a less disastrous 28 per cent year-on-year.
Recently revived UK high street retailer Game can’t be pleased with the direction that retail sales are going but is keeping its eye on the ball and considering closing some of its 333 stores while opening new ones to reshape the business, as well as investing more in “community, digital, pre-owned, CRM and brand”. Digital should definitely be an area of investment for the future.
