“Sega” Revenue: Japanese Video Games Company Doesn’t Need Games to Earn More $1 Billion Ever Year, Here’s How They Do It
SEGA is still earning a lot of profit, but its shift to a new avenue is responsible for it, and not the gaming sector.
- SEGA has recently shifted its focus to a different side to earn profits besides making games.
- While this is hugely profitable, the company still considers gaming a core part of its business model.
- Currently, it has multiple games in development, though when they will come out is unknown.
In this ever-evolving gaming world, survival for game developers is getting tougher each day. Making quality games isn’t the only thing that generates enough revenue to survive, so companies are looking for new ways. Currently, SEGA claims it has found a massive revenue-generating strategy, and that’s not video games.
SEGA is one of the most renowned Japanese game developer companies, with Sonic the Hedgehog, Comix Zone, Mystical Fighter, and other widely popular titles in its possession. While developing games used to be the primary process of generating profit, recently, it was expressed that the situation is no longer the same.
SEGA Has Adapted New Methods to Earn $1 Billion Annually
Whether you are a SEGA fan or not, there’s no way you can deny that this Japanese developer has given players one of the best RPG experiences this year with Metaphor: ReFantazio. However, in recent years, this Tokyo-based company has gone through ups and downs.
SEGA’s transmedia business has gotten a significant boost starting in 2020, and according to the claims of Justin Scarpone, the global head of transmedia, it is currently earning nearly $1 billion annually from the sales of toys, clothing, and merchandise.
It has made it clear that the Japanese developer is expanding its business, but still, there’s no way it is abandoning the renowned IPs. While talking about it, Scarpone mentioned,
“The strategy is to turn us into an entertainment company with games as our core pillar business, just as Disney would say films are.”
But that’s not it, as its dream is much bigger. SEGA wants people to love its IPs, even though they are not gamers, by watching movies, attending live shows, and purchasing merchandise.
Going forward, the lead of the transmedia section has talked about loads of other things, including the process of choosing IPs when they want to revive them through films or games.
SEGA Takes a Unique Method to Revive Classis IPs
This 1960-established Japanese developer company has multiple renowned IPs. Therefore, the selection of games to make films to bring new installments isn’t an easy process. So, one query easily comes to mind: how does this process work?
To clarify this, Justin Scarpone responded that this is an organic process. According to him,
“We let that organically gestate over time and work with the creative folks. And once we have something, we’re like, ‘yep, we have something here, let’s go talk to a studio’.”
However, whether it is games or movies, as the transmedia lead mentioned, they have screenwriters who continuously brainstorm to find new ideas, and whenever they get one, they contact the team of producers to talk about what they want to build.
Additionally, this conversation brought to light that a bunch of games are currently under development in SEGA. The list contains a few renowned names like Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, and Shinobi. Aside from that, even a Virtua Fighter game is in development.
Despite SEGA having multiple different business models to get loads of profit, this company is still based on games, and that’s the core business that it is not ready to abandon.
