May produced another loss for Game sales according to NPD group, but...

Even if sales are down, I think developers can still make a difference. You have to make sure games are released without issues and meet gamers where they are, I'm not saying pump out free games (though we post about freebies on SDGT's FB Page), but... pricing has to be reconsidered among other things.

Want to adapt to the situation? Take creative approaches to make more affordable games that don't hit the budget as hard... and make the fun factor huge. AAA games are still welcome, but there are plenty being delayed because of the resources required. Mid to small titles are still welcome (so get creative), and... DLC is always welcome in an already complete and well-rounded game.

By the way, we've also mentioned something a while ago in terms of meeting gamers where they are, and those are specs. Hunt: Showdown was highlighted at that time as an example, the specs weren't going to open them up to as many people as possible... but more and more games pile into that boat when visually impressive games have run on less (which is primarily a PC gamer issue to worry about and is one of the reasons some gamers stick with console).

Hunt: Showdown requires a minimum for the Graphics card & CPU:

AMD Radeon R7 370 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 TI Graphics Card

AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or Intel i5-4590 @ 3.3GHz (4th Gen) CPU

This isn't a dig at PC gamers at all, game on how you game on... but it's a valid reason why some gamers don't even bother with PC because they want a game to just... work (without running into compatibility issues). We can argue bugs on console... but that's not what I'm referring to here, and bugs can fall on either side since they're not exclusive to console.

By the way, I was talking with someone locally who said, "Well if their PC sucks, it's not my problem because my rig is sick... I can play just fine...". He went into bragging about his specs, but... being part of that smaller collective who can play a game isn't a win for the developer or even the gamers in this category. A smaller player base = fewer people to play with, and... that's less support for the developer.

Supply is limited due to shortages that emerged during the pandemic, so it's only going to increase the need for gamers to remain where they are and game at the current specs for the sake of not breaking the bank... if they can't afford to pay for the upgrades or get a new PC like the Alienware Aurora R13.

Here are a few games that missed out on sales because they required a little too much juice for PC users (this doesn't represent the totality of the player base, but don't ignore things like this):

Elden Ring - 25% of PC users who inquired about compatibility were able to meet the minimum requirements, which left 75% unable to meet them... out of nearly 88,000 PC Gamers!

Call of Duty: Warzone - 34% met the minimum requirements while 66% failed. This wasn't as large of a group as Elden Ring, but still a large enough number at 46,000+ PC Gamers.

Phasmophobia - 24% met the minimum requirement, while 76% failed out of 11,181 systems checked. Special thanks to the Husdawg Team for the data, and truth be told... those that failed don't always just stick to those specs.

Even with NPD groups claims that sales were down before the pandemic, I think it's worth remaining optimistic as a developer... just remember to play your cards right with gamers in mind. You see the information above, it's not always about the cost of the game (which applies to consoles as well)... it might also be the cost of the compatibility (for PC gamers).

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