Hollywood Reporter
Home entertainment has suffered from the recession but not as badly as other business segments, and video game sales are a success story. That’s how Entertainment Merchants Assn. chief Crossan Andersen summed up 2008’s disc business Monday. “In a re cession of historic proportions, American business icons from banking to insurance to auto manufacturing were brought to their knees, with many companies requiring economic resuscitation from the government to survive,” Anderson wrote in the group’s annual report. “Consumers tightened their belts, and jobs were lost. Facing this economic tidal wave, our industry did remarkably well. Overall, however, consumers spent less money on other ‘nonessentials,’ from new clothing and electronics to restaurant meals and, yes, DVD. Meanwhile, the video game sector seemed impervious to all of this and experienced record-setting growth.” The report by the EMA, a nonprofit whose members are DVD and video game retailers, noted that video game console sales increased 11% last year.