Though in the past it often seemed as though the gaming industry was all but immune to the overall economic climate, the past year has proven that developers and publishers are nevertheless still impacted by an economic crisis. However, recent analysis has shown that the Mature segment of the market has remained more or less stable compared to 2008. Despite the fact that less titles were sold overall during the year, the sale of games rated 16+ or higher remained constant. In fact, the sale of these games was almost 20% higher during the second half of the year than in 2008, with all other segments seeing double digit declines.
Sales in the Teen segment, which includes games rated 12+, saw the biggest decline with games in the music genre in particular declining over 40% year-on-year in terms of sales. With the abundance of high-profile first person shooters available during the year, it is no surprise that this genre even saw an increase in sales.