14 DAY TRIAL // While dance games have become very popular in the last couple of years, industry analyst Jesse Divnich believes that 2011 has seen them at their peak, and the New Year will see profits and popularity go down fast.
Dance games have become extremely profitable in the last couple of years, with lots of casual gamers eagerly dropping money on titles like Just Dance, Dance Central or Everybody Dance, which have gained cult-like followings on the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, or PlayStation 3, respectively, resulting in huge profits for the likes of Ubisoft, Harmonix, or Sony.
What’s more, just like music games that came before them, dance titles are making even more money by selling new songs as downloadable content, allowing players to spend even more of their money on additions to the tracks they already have on the standard game disc.
While this proved to be a winning strategy for companies like Ubisoft, which managed to pull in big profits due to its Just Dance series, EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich predicts that the popularity of such dance games will dwindle in the next 12 months.
“Early this year I made a prediction that we may have seen the peak of the Dance genre. As it turns out, I was wrong and people are still dancing as if the local Reverend issued a citywide ban on it. For 2012, however, I am going with the same prediction, I think 2011 is the peak year in the Dance genre,” Divnich told Industry Gamers.
The analysts admits that strong sales will still be experienced by already popular franchises, but they won’t be on the same ascending trend as in 2011.
“Yes, sales will continue and some of us will still be shaking it, but as a whole, I expect fewer people to dance in front of their consoles in 2012 than we saw in 2011. It is safe to assume that if I keep making this my prediction for next year, if I am wrong--eventually I'll be right.”
Music games like Guitar Hero or Rock Band were considered almost unbeatable a few years ago, but, eventually, due to oversaturation and the clunky peripherals required to play them, they became relics of a gaming age that has disappeared. At least according to Divnich, dance games will soon follow in their footsteps.