Video games industry in great health, unlike the rest of the US economy

Interested in dosing up your video game knowledge with a shot of macroeconomic data? Of course you are. The US Entertainment Software Association has delivered its 2010 health report for entertaining software and things are looking rosy. While the US economy was enjoying a steady 2.8 percent annual growth between 2005 and 2008, video game revenues were expanding by 16.7 percent a year. Factoring in the economically arid 2009 chops total US economic growth in half down to 1.4 percent, but gaming again shows its resiliency by taking a smaller dip down to 10.6 percent. That'll be welcome news to the more than 120,000 people whose employment depends on this burgeoning industry, as will the fact that the average annual compensation in the sector is just under $90,000. Good work, if you can get it.

[Papworth Posted Aug 10th 2010 8:43PM]

Excellent news for the Console industry, this is reflected by Sony too who some sources like http://www.theps4forums.com are suggesting that they are already working on a Playstation 4... but as DeciBels suggests I believe the PC Gaming industry is continuing to decline which is a slight worry as it would be the end of an Era in a sense.

[csmitty Posted Aug 10th 2010 8:54PM]

I'm unemployed, what else am I supposed to do all day. However I've just been playing the same one the whole time.

[Texasyoungin Posted Aug 10th 2010 9:06PM]

Pc gaming industry will maybe go extinct one day but not any time soon there are very popular pc games that can't do good at all without a mouse/keyboard. I personally don't see it going away until pc dies. Why would companies like blizzard stop making pc games and all there titles sells millions so you know they are not hurting unless activision messes them up which was a bad marriage from the start. Also I can't wait to see what Sony will do with PS4 but Sony also said it won't be anytime soon either and still wants to refresh the PS3 with new things. Don't plan on seeing the PS4 for another 2-3 years

[23542354 Posted Aug 14th 2010 10:12PM]

@Texasyoungin

PC wont die simply due to MMOs, you cant really make that same experiance with a controller and headset, its best with a keyboard, mouse, headset.

also with companies like Valve making Team Fortress 2, Portal(soon portal2), and their online awesomeness store known as Steam....PC gaming is far from dead its most likely grown due to steam.


Real Time Stragegies, MMOs, Dungeon Crawlers(Diablo), and some shooters are build for the PC and the console ports feel kind of weird

[tonyprince Posted Aug 10th 2010 9:17PM]

hurray. now lets do a transition and go from physical to cloud!! I love steam! Im starting to love OnLive. It's the future!! Imagine Gamefly with a server or Netflix. its just like netflix! No one wants the boxes, wej ust wanna play the damn thing thats inside the Cd.

[Nilithius Posted Aug 11th 2010 1:03AM]

Good news for indie developers like me.

[michbeck Posted Aug 11th 2010 2:19AM]

Nestlé has alone ~280 000 employees. No wonder its hard to get a job in that industry.

[23542354 Posted Aug 14th 2010 10:08PM]

Video games are the most economical way to spend money, one console/high end PC game is $60

most people will easily put 30hours into any decent game, more with a good online experience(bad online experiences make me sell a game)

at $60 for any number of hours of play time some from 20hours and some to 20days of playing time(over a year), Gaming is the best way to stretch your Dollar.....

buying a DVD and watching it maybe twice a year makes it still $10 a watch from 1 year of ownership

buying a game is best in the way that it has repeatability, its different each time you play