Retail Video Games Sales Dropped In 2011, Digital Content To Blame

Video game sales went down in 2011 and also were down in December compared to the year prior. The gaming industry still made a good amount of money with consumers still spending Billions of dollars.

While retail video game sales went down, the findings weren’t the same with purchases of digital games, add-on content, mobile and social games as well as rentals and subscriptions.

“Total consumer spending on video games at retailers dropped 8% in 2011, to $17 million from last year’s total of $18.4 billion.”

“However, digital sales of games and add-on digital content, along with spending on mobile and social games, rentals and subscriptions rose 7% to $7.24 billion in 2011, according to data from market research firm The NPD Group. ” The increase in these areas partially offset the decline in new physical retail sales of content in 2011,” says NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier.”

With retail video game sales still doing pretty good, it’s still a decent hit to companies, especially those who rely off of sales of a few titles while further developing new games that can take a lot of work and an extended period of time to finish.

One would think that December would result in far more retail sales than any other time of the year, but as it turns out, sales dropped in the month of December. Compared to the year prior, sales of games, game accessories, and game systems dropped a whopping 21% compared to December of 2010.

Out of all the game systems, the only one’s who saw an increase in December were Nintendo’s 3Ds and DS.