U.S. consumers are spending money on games but not quite at the pace they were in 2012, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group.
The information company released its 2013 Games Market Dynamics report for the U.S. and claims that consumers in that market spent a total of $2.88 billion on game-related content. That includes the $769 million gamers spent on new physical titles and hardware that NPD reported in its monthly sales charts.
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Despite the huge chunk of money gamers are spending on digital goods, overall sales were still down 3 percent from 2012 when gamers spent $2.97 billion in the same period.
“The decrease in new physical spending is partly due to the decline in the number of new SKUs released at retail — with 37 percent fewer new SKUs in Q2 2013 compared to Q2 2012 — which is to be expected as developers, publishers, and consumers alike prepare for the next hardware generation,” NPD analyst Liam Callahan said in a statement. “Increases in digital format spending offset nearly all the losses from the declines in physical format spending, with digital full game downloads and downloadable-content spending experiencing a combined 27 percent increase — when compared to Q2 2012. Spending increases occurred across both video games and PC games in the digital format.”
The industry is slowing down, but it hasn’t come to a halt. A massive portion of the spending is now online. With anticipated products like Grand Theft Auto V, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 set to launch by the end of this year, the game industry is likely to squeak out some full-year growth.