During a recent presentation for investors and analysts, in addition to revealing that November 2020 had been a record month for Control sales, the company also shared that there has been a notable shift in the way players are purchasing Remedy Entertainment’s games. 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 that digital sales for PlayStation games jumped 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 of Black Friday physical game sales dropped by 20 percent.
MORE: Super Mario 3D All-Stars Breaks Digital Switch Sales Record
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
