Many are probably aware that gaming is a huge business, but how huge? According to initial data from the NPD Group, it has been revealed that at least as far as the US market is concerned, gamers in the US have spent a staggering $9.1 billion in the third quarter of 2018 alone.This is a massive sum of money, but according to the NPD, this also represents an increase of 24% compared to the same time last year. Breaking those numbers down, money spent on actual video games like the games themselves, DLCs, and subscriptions amounted to $7.9 billion and is a 25% increase from the previous year. Titles such as Fortnite, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Madden NFL 19, NBA 2K19, and Candy Crush Saga were also found to have the most positive impact on dollar sales as well.
As far as spending on hardware is concerned, sales have increased by 11% to $737 million, while gaming accessory sales saw an increase by 44% which includes headsets and game cards. According to NPD analyst, Mat Piscatella, “The video game market in the US continues to thrive with compelling gaming content expanding the market, driving higher spending of hardware, accessory, and software.”
He adds, “With the sales strength of recent releases such as Marvel’s Spider-Man and NBA 2K19, combined with cross-platform titles such as Fortnite, there appears to be no slowing down as we head into the final stretch of the holiday shopping season.” Like we said these figures just represent the US market so if we were to take the rest of the world into consideration, that number might be a lot more.
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