Study: Video Game Spending Will Reach $21.6B In 2011

New data from market research firm Newzoo has found that U.S. consumer spending on video games in 2011 will reach a total of $21.6 billion, just lower than that in 2010. The 2011 Games Market Revenue Report, due to be released on July 5, notes that 145 million people in the U.S. -- just under half of the entire population -- will spend money on games in 2011, with most of this money will be spent on console gaming. In total, the company estimates that $8 billion will be spent on console gaming in 2011, while PC and Mac gaming will see $4.3 billion spent across retail and digital downloads. Elsewhere, social network and casual gaming are set to see $4.6 billion spent in total, while mobile gaming will bring in $2.1 billion. MMO games were separated out from these groups in the report and estimated to bring in $2.6 billion for the year. The report predicts that social and mobile gaming will both see a 37 percent increase in revenue year-over-year, while digital distribution will see a 11 percent increase. Console gaming, on the other hand, will be subjected to a 20 percent decline, while PC and Mac games will see a 7 percent drop. Other interesting facts in the report include total time spent playing games per day, and a breakdown of the different gaming platforms used by U.S. gamers. In total, gamers in the U.S. play over 215 million hours of video games a day, with casual gaming making up 23 percent of that time. Gamers average use of 3.8 of the seven different gaming "platforms" mentioned in the report, with casual gaming websites as the most popular, played by 80 percent of gamers (115 million). In comparison, there are 82 million console gamers (57 percent of total gamers) and 75 million mobile gamers (52 percent of total gamers). Peter Warman, co-founder at Newzoo, explained, "Everyone in the games industry understands that the new online and mobile free-to-play business models have the power to accelerate growth, especially in emerging markets -- not only in number of players but also in money spent." "It is exciting to see concrete numbers on these markets and benchmark these with Western countries as well as zoom in on who is actually spending and what they are buying."