NPD Group: US Video Game Spending Declines in 2012 Despite Digital Increase

The NPD Group is releasing figures for overall consumer spending in the United States linked to video games during 2012, showing that the total has decline by no less than 9 percent when compared to 2011.

The overall value for spending linked to the video game industry reached 14.08 billion dollars (10.3 billion Euro).

The biggest decline was linked to the physical market, which saw a decrease of more than 21% when compared to 2011.

Spending linked to digital goods increased by 16 percent, when full games, add-ons, subscriptions, social games and mobile games are taken into account.

Liam Callahan, an analyst working at the NPD Group, is quoted by Gamespot as saying that, “When including all other forms of content spending outside of new physical games, the 2012 US games market was more than twice as large as the total spending on new physical games alone.”