Despite all of the uncertainty of 2008, video game sales have been booming. U.S. sales of video game hardware, software and accessories surged 36 percent in the first half of the year to 8.27 billion dollars. That even outpaces the 6.1 billion dollars grossed over the same period in 2007, which was a record year for the industry.
Indeed, the video game industry has acquired the reputation of being recession-proof and the statistics bear that out. In 2002, after the technology bubble burst, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 22 percent, but video gaming revenue climbed 43 percent. After a banner year in 2007, in which industry sales soared 50 percent to an all-time high of 18.85 billion dollars, 2008 is shaping up to be a new industry standard. Worldwide revenue is expected to exceed 57 billion dollars in 2008, up 35 percent from the 2007 record of 41.9 billion dollars.
267 million video games, an average of nine games per second, were sold across the country last year, but as remarkable as that is, video games are soaring off of the shelves even faster in 2008, with sales up 41 percent in the first half of the year. As the world’s leading format of entertainment, the video game industry had global sales of 41.9 billion dollars in 2007 — double the total sales of 2002. At this rate, global sales will hit 68.3 billion dollars by 2012 — a 10.3 percent annual increase over the next four years.
- David Laprad
