The NPD Group launches digital games tracking service for gaming industry

NPD Now offers SKU-Level sales data for digital and physical video games

The NPD Group today announced that it has launched a digital point-of-sale (POS) sourced service, tracking SKU-level sales data on digital games. NPD's Digital Games Tracking Service is the first service to provide the U.S. gaming industry with publisher-sourced data on digital game sales, aggregated from the participants of a Digital Panel that includes leading publishers in the industry.

"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, U.S. Toys & Games, 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."

NPD's Digital Games Tracking Service, which is currently available only to participants contributing digital data to the service, provides SKU-level sales data for full-game and add-on content downloads for consoles, portables, and PC Games. Fueling the data for this new service are many of the industry's leading publishers, who have been involved in designing the service to meet the needs of this dynamic industry. Following several years of beta testing, the Digital Games Tracking Service will allow participating clients to understand the size and growth of the digital market, and analyze attach rates and other important metrics. Combined with physical data available by NPD, these clients can gain a better understanding of the interplay between the physical and digital sales channels.

"While digital gaming has exploded in the past several years, physical gaming sales, including hardware and accessories, have a major presence in this industry," added Hageman. "With a more complete picture, participants are able to make better business decisions with a broader set of data."

Digital Games Tracking Service Methodology

The Games Digital POS information includes U.S. digital software sales provided by participants. The information is then processed by EEDAR and NPD, and delivered in NPD's propriety web-based analysis tool, DecisionKey. NPD's Digital POS service is an unprojected service that aggregates sales data received from participants for both Video Games and PC Games.