[Consol Games] God of War Ragnarök is defending an embattled console gaming market

[FazzNoth]

The new God of War, a PlayStation exclusive, is a much-needed breath of life for the struggling console gaming market during a rough content drought.

God of War Ragnarök is defending an embattled console gaming market
The new God of War, a PlayStation exclusive, is a much-needed breath of life for the struggling console gaming market during a rough content drought.

Nick Statt and Janko RoettgersNovember 15, 2022
Hello, and welcome to Protocol Entertainment, your guide to the business of the gaming and media industries. This Tuesday, we’re discussing the early success of Sony’s God of War Ragnarök amid a year of decline for the video game industry. Also: How Twitter turmoil and the FTX implosion are affecting the games industry and a major new update for Epic’s Unreal Engine 5.

God of War answers Sony’s prayers
The game market has had a rough 2022: A surprising mobile slump, lower consumer spending, continued hardware supply constraints, and game delays littering the release calendar with unfilled absences.

 

But what is proving to be a resounding success for Sony — and proof of the resilience of the PlayStation maker’s console-first business model — is the new God of War Ragnarök. Released last week to rave reviews and a powerful first week of sales, Ragnarök is helping buoy a struggling console market and underscores Sony’s shrewd and exacting strategy for maximizing the value of its first-party studios.

The new God of War is fantastic. I’ve played only the first handful of hours of Ragnarök’s sprawling story, but it is an improvement in virtually every way over its 2018 predecessor while still maintaining a familiar approach. The original game has sold more than 23 million copies.

Sony opted not to make Ragnarök a PS5-only game and chose instead to target its existing PS4 base of nearly 120 million units. (The game features some graphical and performance upgrades for PS5 players.)

While that means the game doesn’t look and feel radically different, it is available to the widest swath of buyers.
Early sales data in the U.K. indicates Ragnarök enjoyed the biggest launch in the history of the God of War franchise, Gamesindustry.biz reported. The new entry sold more on its first day in that market than the 2018 installment did in its first week.
Ragnarök also dominated The Game Awards nominations yesterday, earning the most of any title this year with 10.
Ragnarök arrived at a particularly troubling time for the industry. Starting this summer, analysts and market research firms began warning of a game industry downturn. By the end of the second quarter, it became clear the market was in decline after two years of explosive pandemic-fueled growth.

New data out today from market researcher Newzoo has the industry contracting by more than 4%. The firm, founded in 2007, has never before forecast a decline for the global games market.

The primary culprit is mobile gaming, which has grown consistently every year since the launch of the iPhone and has helped offset declines in PC and console gaming. Another factor: Several game delays have pushed many big releases to 2023.
Analytics firm Sensor Tower’s gaming lead Dennis Yeh said “barring a major holiday season, annual mobile gaming spend in the U.S. will see a decline for the first time ever,” while Newzoo forecasts a mobile decline of 6.4% this year.
Some good news: The latest Call of Duty game was the fastest-selling in the franchise’s history, moving $800 billion in sales in its first three days.
U.S. market tracker NPD said yesterday that just two days of COD: Modern Warfare 2 sales were enough to make the newest entry the second-best-selling game of the year behind Elden Ring and help keep October consumer spending flat year over year despite the decline in mobile.

Single-player gaming is alive and well — for Sony, at least. The game industry continues to shift investments and priorities toward mobile, live service, and free-to-play gaming. But Ragnarök, as well as February’s smash hit Elden Ring, are offering a refreshing counterbalance to that line of thinking.

While far fewer studios these days enjoy the resources of God of War developer Santa Monica Studio to develop single-player games, there is strong demand for big-budget experiences using cutting-edge graphics and Hollywood voice talent.
Sony has outlined an ambitious plan to develop numerous live service games in the coming years, and it acquired Destiny developer Bungie this year for close to $4 billion to help those efforts.
Sony has also invested in mobile development, revamped its PlayStation Plus subscription, and sped up its pace in porting PlayStation games to PC so it isn’t so reliant on console gaming.
But at the same time, Ragnarök is evidence that narrative-driven console exclusives are still the company’s bread and butter, and Sony has no reason to ignore its core audience of PlayStation single-player fans while it invests in the growth areas it’s neglected until fairly recently.
Ragnarök may end up on PC in a couple of years, and perhaps even on Sony’s subscription service some time after that. But for now, the game is best enjoyed — and only enjoyed — on PlayStation for $60 to $70. So far, it seems likely many millions of players are still just fine with that arrangement.

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