It’s hard to think that at one point people were crying out for Valve to ditch its Steam service. Sure, when it launched it was slow, buggy and generally a pain to work with; now its a juggernaut smashing through the walls of PC game sales. This is why it comes as no surprise that Valve announced Steam has over 15 million registered users.
These 15 million users are the reason that Valve has seen a 158% growth in holiday sales. It also doesn’t hurt that Valve keeps releasing fantastic games.
Bravo to the guys at Valve. They have really given the people what they want; an easy, efficient, safe method of digital distribution as well as a tool for social networking.
Read: Steam hits 15 million users.
Most game studios dream about making $1.2 billion for their parent companies on a yearly basis. Blizzard is living that dream as we speak.
Vivendi Games, parent company of the Irvine, CA-based Blizzard, generated €1.02 billion last year, or around $1.8 billion in USD monopoly money. Of that, €814 million ($1.2 billion USD) came directly from World of Warcraft.
We all knew it was printing money, but, geez. Still, you should know that figure doesn’t refer to profit, which is calculated after business expenses such as salaries, server maintenance, and Mike Morhaime’s blow fund are deducted. Now you know…and knowing is half the battle!
Read: WoW Blasts Vivendi Games Past €1 bln
Bow down, mortals and worship at the altar that is World of Warcraft! 10 million of your puny brethren have already joined the religion!
Your initiation begins with you jumping up and down repeatedly on a nationally televised talk show’s couch proclaiming your love for the game. Then, we’ll send you a free game card. Afterward, you can begin paying the low price of $14.99 a month to further your addiction subscription.
Here’s how Blizzard counts the masses of levelers that grovel at the Dark Portal, waiting to enter the mythical realm of Outland: The 10 million number counts those who have paid an addiction subscription fee or hold an active prepaid card. Visitors to Internet cafes also count toward the total.
Essentially what your overlords are saying is that they’re not counting expired subscriptions in any fashion. There really are 10 million active players scattered throughout the realms.
What are you waiting for? We’ll see you on the other side!
Every week I try and make a news post about the up coming Rock Band DLC. That’s why I like to think that I am solely responsible for Harmonix selling 2.5 million downloadable songs.
Even if that’s not true, according to Harmonix, the most popular downloads were the Metallica, The Police and the Queens of the Stone Age 3-song packs. Apparently the Rock Band crew has more than 200 downloadable songs in store for 2008.
Harmonix, I am awaiting a thank you email and a check. We all know that I’m the only reason your game is a success.
Read: Rock Band songs tops 2.5m downloads, 200+ songs in pipeline.
Love them or hate them, GameStop had a fantastic 2007. Over the past nine weeks, ending Jan. 5, GameStop has sold $2.3 billion. That’s a 34.7% increase from last years holiday season.
What caused such a gigantic growth in sales? According to GameStop chairman and CEO Richard Fontaine: “[GameStop] was particularly pleased with record holiday handheld sell-outs of the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. The Nintendo Wii, even in the face of on-going seasonal shortages, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3, proved to be on many holiday wish lists as new console sales were very strong.”
The top five games sold were Guitar Hero III, Call of Duty 4, Assassin’s Creed, Rock Band and Super Mario Galaxy.
The moment I get some real money, I will definitely be investing in GameStop.
Read: GameStop Reports Record Holiday Sales.
