2019 and 2020 in numbers

It’s that time again – we’ve hit 2020 and it is time to take a look back at the year that just ended.

Once again – for the fourth consecutive time – 2019 broke the record (heh) for most new VGM vinyl releases in a year with around 150 new titles. It’s a small increase from the 145 new titles from 2018, but an increase nonetheless. And as usual this is actual new releases – not including color variants, repressings, etc. (because that number is even higher).

And like previous years there’s no sign of things slowing down. I’ve cleaned up the list of upcoming titles and removed a few that were announced, but have not been mentioned again for well over a year. Despite this, there’s still 86 titles left in the list for us to look forward to! Sorry, but your wallets won’t be safe in 2020 either.

The Labels

iam8bit continues on as one of the most productive labels out there with 16 releases this year, and another 4 announced for the new year.

Laced Records had a spectacular 2019 with a solid mix of classics and new AAA games amounting in 10 new releases – and another 4 already announced for 2020.

Materia Collective truly begun going all in on the market for VGM arrangements released on vinyl and have released 9 titles this year (plus one in collab with Yetee Records).

2019 was the year of Lena Raine for Ship To Shore, with 5 of 7 releases being of her music for games, but they also gave us an obscure Castlevania album and soundtrack to the Japanese cult classic LSD.

A surprise in 2019 was Limited Run Games fully embracing VGM vinyl with 7 releases to their own name as well as announcing a partnership with Brave Wave.

Mondo continued their partnerships with Konami and Sony, which resulted in 6 new titles in 2019.

In the past year we also saw several smaller physical games companies starting to offer collector’s editions with vinyl soundtrack bonuses, which is a trend I suspect we’ll continue to see in the new year.

It’s also exciting that we’ve had new dedicated VGM vinyl labels show up in 2019 with Debug Records already putting out two titles, while Respawned Records and One Run Records have multiple titles planned for 2020.

And I should mention that there are of course many, many more labels who’ve put out stellar releases this year and I don’t see this slowing down either.

Blip Blop in 2019 (also in numbers)

Blip Blop will have its 5th (!) anniversary in the Summer of 2020, which is pretty insane. I had no idea I’d still be doing this 5 years later when I first started. Thanks to all of you for your continued support!

I do have some exciting news that I still can’t share yet, but trust me when I say I’ve got something neat planned for 2020.

A year ago I’d posted over 300 news posts, and now I’m well over 400. Basically meaning that I’m posting a new announcement more than twice a week (and that’s only counting new titles that are available to order). Last year I had over 1200 releases in the directory and right now I’m sitting at 1415. And I know I’m missing a good amount of new color variants and repressings, so the actual number is a bit higher when I’m done catching up!

Again, please note that this number is including every color and release variant for each title.

Listings – both available and upcoming – include music from 1488 different games on 78 different gaming platforms.

And what about you guys – the users of the site? There’s been 27035 unique users in 2019, which is a notable increase from last year! You guys visit from pretty much the same places as last year – almost half of you are located in the US, almost 10% in the UK, while users from Canada, Germany and France make up about 5% each.

Just like the past two years I’ve been a guest on the Video Game Grooves podcast for their end of the year episode, where we take a look back at our favorite releases of 2019. You can listen to it here if you want some listening samples and more discussion rather than just numbers.

2020 looks to hold more of the same for Blip Blop (plus beforementioned surprise, but you’ll have to wait for more about that one). The increase in number of titles and announcements means that there’s not much time for drastic changes, but as always I’m open to new ideas.

You’ve made it to the bottom of my 2019 retrospective – thank you so much for taking your time to read this. We’ve had a great 2019 and it certainly looks like we’ll continue with a great 2020 as well [insert hindsight joke here].