• by Wayne Friedman , November 15, 2021

Against big 2020 revenue gains, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the video-game industry continues to find more growth this year.

Video-game sales in October posted another month of growth -- its sixth in a row -- gaining 16% versus a year ago to $4.4 billion, according to the NPD Group.

Some supply shortages didn’t seem to hurt hardware sales -- which was up 82% to $472 million. For the year so far, Sony Playstation 5 is the highest-producing revenue platform.

This follow a strong third-quarter period, where U.S. consumer spending on video gaming grew 7% in the third quarter versus the same period in 2020 to $13.3 billion -- making it the highest third-quarter spend in history. Spending on video-game content was up 4% to $11.7 billion.

Year-to-date, for the 10-month period, the video-gaming industry is now up 12% to $46.7 billion, and 10% higher $40.87 billion for content sales, up 9% on accessories with 53% more on hardware.

In mobile gaming, October spending grew 12% to over $2 billion. Big sellers here include Candy Crush Saga, Garena Free Fire, Roblox, Coin Master, and Pokemon Go.

Sensor Tower says spending on mobile games in the third quarter grew 9% to over $6 billion.

Through 10-1/2 months of 2021, national TV advertising for the video-gaming industry is at $99.8 million, with 43,517 commercial airings and 8.4 billion impressions, according to iSpot.tv. A year ago, it was $100.9 million with 50,784 airings and 9.9 billion impressions.