TinyBuild’s sales are up amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s CEO isn’t breaking out the champagne.
Much of the world is now under quarantine orders thanks to the coronavirus outbreak, and that means people are stuck at home. Many of them have nothing better to do than play video games, so that’s exactly what they’re doing. Consequently, sales for most game publishers are up. Way up.
Nintendo can likely count on COVID for its massive Animal Crossing: New Horizons sales figures. TinyBuild LLC says that their sales are up 80% amidst the pandemic, but CEO Alex Nichiporchik isn’t exactly celebrating these numbers.
“It’s short-term. We need to look a couple of months ahead when people will turn to more value-driven entertainment such as subscriptions, which is more predictable for a potentially limited family budget,” Nichiporchik said in an interview with Escapist Magazine. “For Hello Neighbor, the downloads reached 1.7 million during last month, doubling the usual growth rate. It’s not smart to celebrate the short-term sales boost everyone in the industry is seeing, as we need to prepare for an economic downturn and figure out more value-driven entertainment.”
Nichiporchik said that much of the current boost in gaming sales can be attributed to temporary subscription purchases for things like Xbox Game Pass, and those subscriptions will dry up once the pandemic is over. Whenever that happens, publishers will suddenly find themselves in the red if they’re not careful about their expenditures.
Source: Escapist
