Shoppers in London
Image: Pixabay

Games have been flopping pretty freakin' hard this holiday, lending many to question just what's gone wrong. And now, speaking with MCV magazine, UK game retailers have weighed in on the spate of disastrous launches that we've seen over the past few weeks, describing Black Friday as the "worst thing to happen" to shops. Maybe you shouldn't have pushed it so hard, eh?

According to a retail source, it's the adopted American holiday that's to blame for the poor sales of Titanfall 2, Dishonored 2, and many more. The belief is that more and more consumers are pausing for discounts rather than purchasing games day one, and with the likes of Watch Dogs 2 being cut just days after release, it's not exactly hard to see why.

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Of course, the worry is that Black Friday's deep discounting won't make up the deficit that's been lost over the past few months. "The market cannot turn around now," a retail source said. "Pre-orders and the first couple of weeks sales are enormously important to both publishers and retailers but there has been some appalling results this year due to Black Friday."

Sony has, for some years now, been pulling its major first-party releases out of the holiday period and into quieter portions of the year. It's a strategy that's drawn ire, but retail believes that other publishers may now follow suit: "It's hard to see why publishers would release games in November going forward. Black Friday is the worst thing to happen to UK retail."

[source mcvuk.com]