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US customers spent $15bn on games in 2009

NPD says over $4bn went on extra content such as subs, DLC and pre-owned

Analyst NPD has revealed game sales revenue for 2009, and particularly highlights consumers' enormous spend on non-traditional content such as DLC, subscription fees, rentals, full game downloads, mobile titles and pre-owned games.

The US spent between $4.5 and $4.75 billion on such content, on top of the $10.5 billion on new retail games. This seems a clear sign of the popularity of newer forms of content delivery.

"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,” said Anita Frazier, industry analyst at The NPD Group. "Consumer spending on social network games like those offered by Facebook would push this estimate even higher."

NPD arrived at these figures via a combination of POS tracking, consumer research and internal estimates.

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Alec Meer

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A 10-year veteran of scribbling about video games, Alec primarily writes for Rock, Paper, Shotgun, but given any opportunity he will escape his keyboard and mouse ghetto to write about any and all formats.