Finnish game developerRemedy Entertainmenthas continued to experience financial success from its 2019 action-adventure titleControl.Despite the recent backlash surrounding the company’s decision to only allow next-gen upgrades for players who purchase theControlUltimate Edition, the game has proven to be Remedy’s fastest-growing IP sinceMax Payne.
During a recent presentation for investors and analysts, in addition to revealing that November 2020 had been a record month forControlsales, the company also shared that there has been a notable shift in the way players are purchasingRemedy Entertainment’sgames. In 2019, 40 percent of the company’s game sales were physical; in 2020, that number has dropped to only 10 percent.
RELATED:Control Ultimate Edition Delayed for PS5, Xbox Series X Until 2021
Remedy isn’t the only game company to experience such a drastic shift in digital versus physical sales. Sony earns a remarkable amount of revenue from DLC and microtransactions, with the number of purchases from the PlayStation Store increasing steadily with each console generation. In August, Niko Partners, a market research firm that analyzes the video game industry in Asia, revealed thatdigital sales for PlayStation gamesjumped from 53 to 74 percent in the first quarter of 2020, April 1 to June 30.
Electronic Arts has shown a similar upward trend in digital game sales this year. Having adopted the initiative “Stay Home, Play Together” in the face of this year’s global health crisis,EA has seen a continual increase in digital sales, particularly on PC. In May 2020, the company shared its fourth-quarter sales figures and, while the company earned less in total net revenue than it had in the same quarter last year, digital sales in the form of online-enabled games and mobile platform fees increased by 9 percent.
Even during major holiday sales events like Black Friday, when people usually throng to stores to get the best deals on consoles and video games, the move towards digital sales remained. In the UK, where many retailers are shut down, during the week ofBlack Friday physical game salesdropped by 20 percent.
In 2020 in particular, the reasons many players have shifted from buying games in physical format to digital are obvious. The coronavirus pandemic has closed down all but essential businesses. And although players can still order physical copies of games fromonline retailers like GameStopand Amazon, the convenience of buying a digital game and instantly being able to download and play it, without waiting for shipping, is likely a deciding factor when players choose how to obtain their games while stuck at home.
