8 News Stories That Prove Gaming Has Already Changed Forever

3. 2019's Video Games Are Underperforming (Or Are They?)

Despite the industry as a whole enjoying a record-breaking year in 2018, 2019's biggest hitters have been overshadowed by constant news headlines that they're underperforming. Sequels like The Division 2 and Far Cry: New Dawn both sold a fraction of their predecessors, while new IPs like Anthem also sold less than Bioware's other titles. Not to mention Crackdown 3, which didn't even break the top 10 of the month it released after a six year wait. Ouch.

While these poor sales seem like disasters on paper though, it's not quite so bleak. These charts only take into account physical sales, and if anything, are more indicative of how the digital marketplace has exploded over the past few years. Take Crackdown 3 for example; the sequel's poor reception and lack of marketing no doubt resulted in soft sales, but a debut so low probably had more to do with so many trying it out via Microsoft's Game Pass than ponying up for a physical copy.

This is on top of news that 80% of the UK video game market is now made up of digital sales, and these figures show how people at large are moving away from physical media, and how these statistics need to evolve to accommodate that.