US game spending ‘could be down 10% this year’

US consumer spending on games could decline by 10% this year, according to market research firm Circana.

Analyst Mat Piscatella told GamesIndustry.biz that this figure was in the “pessimistic” range of what could play out in the US market in 2024, but predicted a tough 9 months ahead even if spend is on the more positive end of the spectrum.

“Right now my most optimistic outlook is down about 2%,” Piscatella said. “If you start looking a little bit on the more pessimistic side, you’re looking at down about 10%. If things really go sideways, you’re looking at a little bit more.

“There’s so much uncertainty when you look at the sales data or look to project this year. There’s uncertainty around the hardware. There’s uncertainty about the content. Who the hell’s making the games?”

With Grand Theft Auto 6 not launching until 2025, Switch 2 understood to have internally slipped to the same year, and Sony telling the market it won’t have any established blockbusters, the games market is facing uncertain times.

Piscatella noted that the biggest two games of the year so far – Helldivers 2 and Palworld – virtually came out of nowhere.

“Helldivers 2 and Palworld have done a lot of heavy lifting early in the year, but we’re up against a comp last year with Hogwarts Legacy, which was a massive hit,” he said. “So we need another game on top of Helldivers and Palworld to try to comp what Hogwarts was doing last year, and it’s still doing a year later.”

He added: “The uncertainty level this year is probably the highest I can recall – and I’ve been around since 2005 – with the uncertainty of what’s going to get us to the finish line because we don’t have those big games announced that we know. When people are saying ‘our slate’s going to be light this year,’ that’s not something that usually happens.”

Circana predicted that it could be a particularly tough year for games retailers, with Nintendo’s expected new hardware not arriving, and the push to digital continuing.

“Retail’s had to get really clever, and on the physical side of the business it continues to decline,” Piscatella said.

“With no new Nintendo hardware this year, it’s going to accelerate because Nintendo is right at the 50-50 cusp when it comes to physical/digital, but everyone else is way digital. So retail still relies on Nintendo much more than they do other platforms.”