Propping up the industry

Jun 21, 2010 08:22 GMT  ·  By

A recent study by the NPD Group shows that gamers in the United States spent no less than 4.5 and up until to 4.75 billion dollars during 2009 on used games, rentals, subscriptions, digital downloads and downloadable content. The figure also includes mobile applications. Taking into account the new figures, the research suggests overall spending on the videogame industry could be as high as 15.25 billion dollars. The real life monetary amount linked to gaming could be even bigger as the NPD Group is emphasizing the fact that social gaming is not included in its figures.

Anita Frazier, who is an analyst for the NPD Group, stated, “Our expanded estimate of consumer spending reflects the growing number of options to purchase, acquire and interact with video games ranging from GameFly rentals to iPod Touch game apps. Consumer spending on social network games like those offered by Facebook would push this estimate even higher.”

The numbers coming from the NPD reinforce the idea of a gaming industry becoming less and less dependent on sales of physical, boxed, new videogames, which have traditionally provided most of the revenue for publishers. Now, almost with every big title, downloadable content is announced even before launch and digital distribution versions tend to arrive soon after the physical product or at the same time.

As infrastructure improves and as console manufacturers, like Sony and Microsoft, become more interested in allowing players to get games via download, the number of titles sold at traditional retail will continue to fall, although rumors of the death of boxed copies have been greatly exaggerated.

The numbers released by the NPD Group also raise hopes that the company might be ready to introduce sales of digitally distributed titles in its monthly sales charts, giving more importance to the PC, which has seen a revival since the launch of Steam, Impulse and Direct 2 Drive.