2020 and 2021 in numbers
Another year has passed and once again it is time to take a look back. While we might not want to remember a lot of 2020 there’s no denying that it was another strong year for VGM vinyl.
This year we had around 176 new releases – which compared to last years 150 is a pretty impressive increase. And just to make it clear – this is actually new titles, not repressings or different color variants.
There is no signs of 2021 slowing down either as I have 144 upcoming releases listed on the Upcoming Releases page, which is by far the largest number it has ever been – last year around this time it had 86 titles.
The Labels
For the first time in a few years iam8bit was not the most productive VGM vinyl label – that title now goes to Laced Records who put out a massive 20 new releases this year. And they also have 4 upcoming titles already announced for 2021.
iam8bit was still productive, though, and put out 15 new releases in 2020 and with 6 titles coming in 2021 they’re also looking to have yet another year full of new releases.
Black Screen Records stepped up with a very solid year too, sporting 11 new releases including a free VGM vinyl compilation album! They’ve already got 4 new titles in store for 2021 and I’m sure there’s more to come as well.
Ship To Shore PhonoCo. continued their Konami partnership alongside several indie game soundtracks for a total of 9 new releases. So far they have 4 announced AND 8 unannounced for 2021 with new partnerships with Bandai Namco and Capcom, which is sure to add to those numbers.
Limited Run Games continued their form from 2019 with 7 new releases and with 12 releases already announced for 2021 it’s shaping up to be a massive vinyl year for them.
Fangamer was very quiet the first half of 2020 and then they went all out with 7 new titles as well as another one announced for 2021.
Respawned Records had their first full year as a record label and did so with 7 new titles – and another 5 coming early in 2021 as well, so it looks like there is plenty to look forward to from them.
Mondo put out 6 titles this year and have several announced titles coming, but it’s not fully certain if all those are planned for 2021 or later.
Brave Wave too had a good year with 5 new releases, but they are really gearing up for 2021 with a whopping 10 titles already scheduled for the first half of 2021.
Obviously there were many, many more releases from other labels, but I can’t list them all here. It’s also another year with newcomers to the scene where Stumpy Frog, Respawned and Streaming Arrow had good years – and we saw an old soundtrack behemoth in Milan Records slowly embracing game soundtracks as well. All in all 2021 is shaping up to be a massive year for VGM vinyl. Once again.
Blip Blop in 2020 (also in numbers!)
Blip Blop celebrated its 5th anniversary with the biggest giveaway yet (and biggest one for a while too – sorry, guys!). It’s truly been a wild ride, and I never expected the site and socials to be as popular as they’ve been. Thanks to all of you guys and gals for the support through 5+ years!
Last year there was well over 400 news posts on the site. Well, that number is now over 600, so on average there’s been a new order or preorder going up more than 3 times a week this year. My wallet can feel that.
In the meantime the number of releases on the site have also increased from 1415 last year to 1746 this year. I’ve been hard at work adding repressings and color variants to the site, but there are still a good amount missing, which I can hopefully catch up on in this year (which I said last year too, so who knows…).
There’s music for 1780 different games spread out over 82 different gaming platforms.
How about the users of the site? There’s been a neat increase as we’ve had 32.507 unique users on the site in 2020. You’re visiting from the same places as usual with half of you being located in the US, 10% in the UK and Canada, France and Germany hovering around the 5% mark.
Like the last couple of years I’ve also been a guest on Video Game Grooves End of Year podcast, which you can listen to here. We go over our favorite releases of 2020 and reveal your favorite releases based on votes from our community poll.
For all intents and purposes 2020 was a wild year, but it appears that 2021 is shaping up to be even wilder – for VGM vinyl releases that is – we’ve had enough pandemic action for one year already, so let’s keep that to a minimum. There’s not been any drastic changes to the site and I’m not sure I’ll have time for that this year either, but feel free to send suggestions my way as well. I will be looking into an e-mail newsletter, but there’s no ETA on that right now.
You’ve reached the bottom of this long, long 2020 recap! Thank you for reading ,thank you for supporting Blip Blop and thank you for being awesome! Here’s to a great 2021!