Is there any figures for previous years?

That means nothing: in 2008 the Video Game Industry recorded its second-highest revenue ever, something that can't be said for the other industries you listed.

Revenue is not the problem. The recession is NOT the problem. Don't let executives' excuses for their piss-poor decisions convince you otherwise.

 Probably, although I don't have access to them myself.

Very well said Mummelman

At the start of the recession there were many who believed the electronic gaming industry to be bulletproof.

Hell no, it's not.

There was a very interesting article I read from a US financial journal which claimed that although SW sales are not bad (2007 - 2009) they were way off what many software publishers forecasted due to the recession.

The higher cost of developing for HD consoles doesn't help but that's not entirely to blame.

I will try to find the article...if I can.

Sure, whilst they have the figure of the number of job losses but they haven't got the figures for the number of new positions created. It would be like saying the job market is terrible because X number of people fired whilst ignoring new job creation.

Just to make sure I understand you correctly: you're asserting that the number of new positions created in this timeframe even remotely approaches the number of layoffs.

Correct?

Really??

The VG industry was predicted to explode like nuke in the mid noughties.

Even if 2008 was the second highest revenue ever it was also very likely the highest developing cost of games ever.

Revenue don't mean shit if most of it goes towards covering expenses leaving you with next to nothing in profit.

Casual or even some seasoned gamers out of work or worried about keeping their jobs have more important priorities .. or so I am led to believe, than to buy every game on their wish list.

Not a single bit of this contradicts a word I said.

Not. One. Bit.

Of course the industry isn't recession proof, the 1930s film industry proved no entertainment medium is recession proof. Something to the tune of 1/2 of the movie theaters shut down, and right around the time when sound was a new thing (a big technological jump just before a crash). Granted today is nothing near the level of the Great Depression, but like you said, the entertainment industry seems to do better than most.

At least part of the blame does rest on "evil, shiny graphics." Most of the video game industry (including Nintendo) isn't Microsoft and Sony--they can't sink billions of dollars into debt while other arms of their company pick up the slack. The industry as a whole wasn't financially ready for the leap to HD. There was something like 10-15% HD penetration (and what % of that % are gamers?) by 2006, and to make matters worse the cost to produce a game has gone through the roof.

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=37077

This thread is a pretty good one on the financial problems HD causes. That's the problem, though, it's already an economic strain in difficult economic times. Things weren't exactly peachy here in the US for quite a few years prior to the crash, the financial system just publicly caught up with the rest of the problems. 2001-2002 "9/11 Recession" was fairly substantial, 2005 saw a massive downturn in the housing market. Not to mention a slow and steady collapse of the middle class here since the early 1980s that accelerated in the last decade. 

The death of the computer gaming industry around the end of 2001 was something like a canary in a coal mine.

So I agree with a lot of what you're saying in spirit, I'm just putting a higher % of blame on HD than you.  In my opinion it was the 2 biggest bullies on the block pushing the whole industry in a direction it wasn't ready for.

No im asserting that in no way does the article paint an accurate picture of the game industry due to the structural changes which have taken place. We've had studios which have constantly been hiring, an explosive growth in downloadable console and phone game content, always got a lot of new start-ups in the industry. Its difficult to trace how well the industry is doing with this metric because layoffs are reported but never hirings.

I wish I could hire those 11,500 people to make some really casual pick-up-and-play social games that make more money than all their stupid old jobs.