Online gaming sales expected to increase to $13 billion by 2012

With digital distribution becoming more popular for various media – with both companies and consumers – it’s no surprise that sales for online video game purchases are expected to increase during the next few years.

DFC Intelligence, a marketing and research firm, released a report titled “Online Game Market Forecasts” that projects online video game sales will increase from $4.5 billion in 2006 to $13 billion by 2012. The report also projects that digital distribution will constitute 40% of all online game spending.

With all of this money being spent on video games and the influx of in-game advertising by companies such as Google, we still cannot expect game prices to fall due to being spent on advertising.

Video games are big money productions, requiring Hollywood production size staffs, budgets and release schedules. A report by eMarkerter projects that worldwide game advertising spending will increase from $692 million in 2006 to $1.938 billion. Commercials in front of movies and must-view trailers on DVDs? That’s nothin’ compared to what we can expect from video games in the near future.

Read [WebProNews] Also Read [eMarketer]