Social games, virtual goods, downloadable content are opening new revenue streams for game makers
According to the soon-to-be-released Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend report from leading market research company, The NPD Group, in addition to the $3.7 billion spent in the U.S. by consumers on new physical video and PC game software in the first half of 2010, the total consumer spend on content via other monetization methods, including used games, game rentals, subscriptions, digital full game downloads, social network games, downloadable content, and mobile game apps., is estimated in the range of $2.6 to $2.9 billion.
Based on this research, while dollars spent by consumers on new physical retail items (hardware, content and accessories) still accounts for the majority of the total consumer spend on the industry, the total consumer spend on the industry is nearly 40 percent larger than new physical retail sales alone.
"While the new physical retail channel still generates the majority of industry sales, our expanded research coverage allows us to assess the total consumer spend across the growing number of ways to acquire and experience gaming, including social networks," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group. "Through a combination of point-of-sale and consumer research tracking, The NPD Group is providing an expanded, more comprehensive measure of a dynamic and rapidly changing games industry."
The estimates will be published in NPD’s new report, Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend – to be released by The NPD Group in late October 2010 - and are derived leveraging NPD’s portfolio of physical POS tracking (Retail Tracking Service) and consumer research including the Games Acquisition Monitor, Video Game and PC Game Subscriptions Report and Consumer Tracking Service. It also incorporates consumer spend estimation provided by NPD retail and publisher partners, and calibration with third party sources.
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About the Author
John Gaudiosi
Editor-in-Chief
John Gaudiosi has been covering videogames for the past 17 years for outlets like The Washington Post, CNET, Wired Magazine and CBS.com. He has focused on the convergence of entertainment and videogames for outlets like Video Business, Home Media Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Gamerlive.TV and is also a freelance game columnist for Reuters and writes for outlets like Playboy Magazine, NVISION Magazine, GamePro Magazine, Official PlayStation Magazine, EGM Now, Maxim.com, AOL GameDaily.com, GeForce.com, and Yahoo! Games. John also serves as the video game expert for NBC in Washington D.C. John was named one of the Top 50 Game Journalists in the world by Next-Gen.biz in 2007. He is the co-author of Scholastic Books' How to Get into Videogames, Prima Publishing's Madden: Twenty Years of Videogame Football and Electronic Arts: The Official History.
