The NPD Group reports that the overall game spend in the U.S. during the second quarter was $2.88 billion, with $1 billion was spent on new physical video and PC game software, $386 million on used and rentals and $1.47 billion was fueled by gaming content in digital format. Europe saw a similar retail decline with the U.K., France and Germany generating $243 million from used and rental and digital format sales in those three countries producing $983 million in sales during Q2 2012.
“In the second quarter of this year, sales of content in a digital format have grown 17 percent over Q2 2011,” said Anita Frazier, industry analyst for The NPD Group. “While this growth is in stark contrast to the declines in new physical software and hardware sales, the size of digital sales is not quite large enough to offset these declines, leading to an overall drop in consumer spending in Q2 by 16 percent.”
“While many European acquisition trends in the second quarter of 2012 mirrored those we saw in the U.S. due to seasonality, Europe differed from the U.S. in terms of softer mobile spending, but greater stability in rental trends,” added Frazier. “Growth in full-game and add-on content downloads in the second quarter is surprisingly similar as the content behind this increase is suitable to both markets.”
