The stiff economy is taking its toll on the US video game industry, with sales falling 31% to $1.17 billion during June. Research group NPD has recognized this as the industry’s largest decline since 2000. According to Anita Frazier, an analyst at the firm, this was one of the first months where the economy clearly affected sales figures.

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"If you build it - and it doesn't reek - they will come."

Exactly. I'm sure the economy has some impact to video game sales, but there just hasn't been any real quality releases. If you check Metacritics game ratings, scores of 90 or higher are extremely few and far between. Maybe 4-5 since the beginning of the year. But there are a slew of games that have scored 70 or lower. I ain't shelling out my hard earned cash for that kind of junk.

The end of the year there are predicted to be a slew of highly anticipated major releases, so no doubt their sales figures will rebound then.

Why do people still use NPD data as the 'be all, end all'????

Steam, direct2Drive, Amazon, Blizzards digital outlet, and any other digital distribution are taking over CD/DVD format for game titles.

Christ i cant even remember the last time i bought a game in a shop....

I have 80+ titles on my Steam account

Its scare mongering to some how insinuate the validity of DRM and the whole 'piracy is killing the industry' fiasco imho.

@guyver1: Nobody (here anyway) is taking NPD's research as the supreme word. In fact, in an article just a month back I recognized that their figures aren't 100% spot on:

"NPD Group research excludes both legal and illegal digital distribution, so its numbers are not completely accurate as they mostly reflect what's hot on retail shelves." http://www.techspot.com/news/35131-blizzard-dominates-may-pc-game-sales.html

That said, they aren't worthless either.

As pointed out the lack of quality titles surely plays a part in this decline. With many amazing titles looking to come out in 2010 I'm sure this will turn around. Sadly thou some great franchises will lose my support due to ridiculously poor decisions made from the team regarding the games. Like CNC4 somehow needing constant online activity for single player in order to track stats which is a load of horsesh**. But I digress, and go rant about EA's poor decision making elsewhere :( .

The economy is certainly a factor in sales slipping but I wonder if their down a bit typically in the summer months as people spend more time in outdoor activities. Even with revenues down there are jobs available as Video Game Testers.