US consumer spending on video games is up 24% compared with this time last year

The overall total industry consumer spending on video gaming in the US has reached $9.1 billion in the third quarter of 2018, a year-over-year increase of 24 per cent.

According to the report by The NPD Group, video game content sales increased 25 per cent to $7.9 billion, with all content categories – including full-game, DLC/microtransactions, subscriptions, and mobile – seeing an increase. Mobile games and digital content for console and portable platforms, in particular, saw the biggest boosts, with Candy Crush Saga, Fortnite, Madden NFL 19, Marvel’s Spider-Man and NBA 2K19 all reported to have had the "most positive impact" on dollar sales in the first half of the fiscal year.

Hardware sales saw an 11 per cent increase, too, with Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and "Plug & Play" devices like NES and SNES Classics pushing revenue to $737 million across quarter three. The sale of accessories such as headsets grew by 44 per cent year-over-year, while demand for game cards jumped 63 per cent, surpassing the general accessory sales category for the very first time.

"The Video Game market in the U.S. continues to thrive with compelling gaming content expanding the market, driving higher spending of hardware, accessory and software,” said Mat Piscatella, NPD Group’s games industry analyst. "And 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."

In other sales news, Black Friday and Cyber Monday recently pushed digital spending to a record $4 billion. Digital spend increased by 14.3 per cent over the same weekend last year, the increased attributed to "deep discounts" offered by digital storefronts like Steam, and the Xbox and PlayStation stores, as well as in-game deals for AAA titles like Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2.