2018 and 2019 in numbers

It’s a day late, but it’s here! It’s now 2019 and it’s time for the big look back on the year 2018 in VGM vinyl like we do every year.

And what a year. It’s the third year in a row where the record for most VGM vinyl releases in a year have been broken. 2017 was a great year with around 130 new titles, but 2018 had around 145 new titles. And this number does not include different color variants and repressings of older titles – it’s all new stuff!

We still have plenty to look forward to, too, as I’m currently counting 72 upcoming titles that have yet to be released. And there’s no sign that the lovely people at the many VGM vinyl labels are slowing down this year (so hide your wallets).

The Labels

Once again iam8bit is the most productive label with a massive 17 titles released in 2018 with Old Man’s Journey just shipping beginning to ship out before Christmas. They have slowed things down a good bit, though, with only 3 announced upcoming titles for 2019 (as opposed to the 15 announced titles they had at the end of 2017). They have also become the first (and so far only) VGM label to announce a title and later cancel the release (and doing so twice in 2018).

The big surprise label in 2018 is Fangamer who have completely exploded onto the stage with a 11 new titles. They seem to have really found their place with releases of popular indie game soundtracks and finished off 2018 strong with the anticipated Stardew Valley 4LP box set. They only have one confirmed announcement for 2019, but I’m sure they’ll be releasing many titles again this year.

Yetee Records have also really found their niche with some more obscure indie game soundtracks and released 10 VGM vinyl titles in 2018. They have 2 confirmed VGM titles announced for 2019 including a very interesting Star Fox arrangement.

Ship To Shore PhonoCo. had a busy year, too, with 9 new releases. They are continuing strong with their Konami partnership and also put out the soundtrack to Celeste, which is arguably one of the most popular indie game soundtracks of 2018. They have 9 upcoming titles announced, most of which are scheduled to release in 2019 too, so we’ll be hearing a lot more from Ship To Shore this year.

Black Screen Records had a somewhat slower year compared to 2017, but still managed to put out 7 new titles in 2018 including one of my favorite releases of 2018 – Spaceplan! They have 2 upcoming titles announced for 2019 as well.

Laced Records also had a strong year with 7 new releases including the massively anticipated DOOM (2016) soundtrack and surprisingly music from RuneScape. They also have 2 confirmed titles announced for 2019.

Mondo also had a good year with 7 strong titles including the highly anticipated Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night and Katamari Damacy – which was the VGM vinyl community’s favorite release of 2018 in the poll I did with the Video Game Grooves podcast.

Data Discs put out 5 new releases including some titles from new partnerships with Konami and Capcom alongside their popular releases of Sega soundtracks. They have 1 title announced for 2019 – the very popular Thunder Force IV soundtrack.

Ghost Ramp also had a good run of 5 new titles including the highly praised Hollow Knight soundtrack. They’ve also promised more good things to come in the new year and have 2 confirmed titles coming.

Other worthwhile mentions would be Brave Wave with 4 releases, with more to come next year, and Materia Collective who put out their first 4 vinyl releases in 2018 and already have 4 more titles scheduled for this year.

There are many more, but the list is already dragging on – in short, it’s been a very strong year for VGM vinyl labels. Many great and varied titles coming out and it looks like it’ll continue on in 2019.

Blip Blop in 2018 (also in numbers)

Blip Blop has now been a thing for almost 3½ years, which is crazy considering I sort of started out on a whim. Thanks to all of you who follow the site and enjoy the content. I’m sorry about your wallets, though.

Last year for this post I had done over 200 news posts for the site and I’m currently well over 300, so it looks like I’m on a 100+ posts a year now. Last year there was just over 1000 releases in the directory and now we’re sitting at over 1200 – 1223 to be exact (including color variants, promo copies and such).

Listings – both available and upcoming – include music from 1296 different games on 77 different gaming platforms.

And what about the users on the site? Well, there’s been 20670 unique visitors this year, which is a nice increase compared to last year. You visit from mostly the same places as last year with almost half of all visitors being from the US, almost 10% from the UK and 5% from Canada, Germany and France respectively. The majority of users are people who have visited the site before, so it looks like you guys like what you’re getting here.

If this is all a bit too heavy on the numbers and you’d like a more discussion-based look back on 2018 I once again joined the good folks from the Video Game Grooves podcast for their “Best Of 2018” episode.

So what does the future hold for Blip Blop? Well, I have the same boring answer as last year – more of the same. I don’t have the time to set up any drastic changes, but I’ll continue keeping you guys updated like always.

If you made it all the way down here then thanks for reading and checking out this look back on 2018 in VGM vinyl. 2018 was a great year and it looks like 2019 will be great as well.