Entertainment research firm The NPD Group will begin tracking sales of digital games, aggregated from leading publishers, the company announced July 11. NPD said it would be the first service offering the U.S. gaming industry with publisher-sourced data for digital game sales.
“As has been experienced across a wide variety of industries, digital has made a big impact on the overall gaming market, and we’ve risen to meet the demand for a reporting mechanism that tracks those sales in a timely and accurate way,” said Joanne Hageman, president of U.S. toys and games for The NPD Group. “With the participation and support of leading publishers – whose cooperation makes this possible – we are excited to launch an industry-first service that addresses a long-standing need.”
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The Digital Games Tracking Service is currently only available to companies contributing data to the service, and includes SKU-level sales data for both full-game sales and add-on content downloads. The data covers consoles, mobile devices, and PCs.
NPD said it has been testing the service for years, and will offer new insights into the size of the digital games market. The information will be delivered to clients via DecisionKey, NPD’s proprietary web-based analysis tool.
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“While digital gaming has exploded in the past several years, physical gaming sales, including hardware and accessories, have a major presence in this industry,” Hageman said. “With a more complete picture, participants are able to make better business decisions with a broader set of data.”
