Spider-Man And Fortnite Lead To Rising Game Industry Sales, Says NPD

Video game spending in the US increased in the third quarter of 2018 over the previous year, according to a report by the NPD Group. The sales tracking firm said the games having the biggest impact on the figures were Candy Crush Saga, Fortnite, Madden NFL 19, Spider-Man, and NBA 2K19.

Altogether the firm says that total spending on video games increased 24% from July-September, over the same period in 2017. It reached a total of $9.1 billion. "Video game content" accounted for $7.9 billion, but that broad category includes full games, DLC, and subscriptions. Mobile games and digital content sales had the highest growth.

Hardware grew by 11% to $737 million, while accessories like headsets grew by 44%. Game cards had a particularly sharp increase of 63%, marking the first time they've beaten accessories during this period of the year.

This isn't the first we've heard of games like Spider-Man and Fortnite lifting the industry up. Earlier this year NPD announced similarly rising figures on the back of Fortnite and God of War. Similarly, Sony boasted in September that Spider-Man had broken sales records set by God of War, and sales have apparently been so strong that the PlayStation business lifted Sony's financial forecast as a whole.

"The Video Game market in the U.S. continues to thrive with compelling gaming content expanding the market, driving higher spending of hardware, accessory and software," said Mat Piscatella, games industry analyst at The NPD Group. "And with the sales strength of recent releases such as Marvel's Spider-Man and NBA 2K19, combined with cross-platform titles such as Fortnite, there appears to be no slowing down as we head into the final stretch of the holiday shopping season."