Core Gaming Is More Important than Social and Free to Play

Despite all the talk of the rise of free to play social titles and the development of gaming on Apple made devices like the iPhone and the iPad the best way for a traditional publisher to invest its money is to fund the development of high quality core video games for the traditional market.

A report from Cowan & Company says that “The results of our Fall 2010 Videogame Survey do not change our view that high-quality games for the core gamer remain the best investment for videogame publishers despite changes to the structure of the videogame industry”.

This comes as less than 5 percent of those who have responded to the survey have said that they have bought fewer traditional consoles games because they diverted funds of time to free to play titles or to portable gaming devices.

The report also found that it is a good idea for publishers to deliver downloadable content for their video games, with 76% of console gamers who are connected to the Internet reporting that they have picked up DLC in the last year, with 46 percent spending more than 20 dollars on it.

The report comes just as the industry is getting out of the very busy fall launch season, which has seen the release of titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops, which is on track to being the biggest entertainment event of the year, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Fable III, Gran Turismo 5, Halo: Reach or FIFA 11.

Social gaming has been so far mostly focused on titles launched on Facebook.

The same survey says that the best way for Microsoft and Sony to spur growth in sales for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 while also creating a space for sales of Kinect and Move would be to cut the price of their consoles by about 30 dollars overall.