Phone Detective

According to estimates released by NPD Group, U.S. consumers spent $4.5 - $.4.75 billion on used games, rentals, subscriptions, digital downloaded games, downloadable content, and mobile applications. This data comes from refined "point-of-sale tracking, consumer research (using tools like Games Acquisition Monitor, Video Game & PC Game Subscriptions Tracker, and Consumer Purchase Tracker), and figures provided by NPD retail and its publisher partners," according to a Gamasutra report.

A good portion of that figure, the report says, comes from downloadable content and digitally distributed games. This helped bring the total amount consumers spent on video games in 2009 to $15.0 - $15.25 billion. The other $10.5 million in that figure comes from consumers buying physical media, though a breakdown of that data (how much was from new versus used games, for example) was not available.

NPD also pointed out that this figure excluded social networking game titles: Read More

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