Game industry rakes in more than $20 billion in 2008

It’s hard to tell from all the closures, layoffs and other bad financial info we talk about all day but according to research firm NPD Group, the video game industry pulled down huge profits in 2008.

According to NPD’s stats, computer, video game and peripheral sales added up to $21 billion in 2008 with entertainment software comprising up to $11.7 billion of that. That’s a jump of more than 23 percent from 2007, although it probably does little to console the numerous people in the industry that lost jobs recently.

Also interesting to note is that more than half of those software sales are considered…