With a sliding economy video games are starting to prove their staying power. Many economist thought that this would happen, but since the video game industry is failry young it has not seen an economy down fall such as this.

The good news: video games, consoles and game accessories hit $1.12 billion in May, a 37 percent rise over the same month last year, driven by the chart-topping “Grand Theft Auto” video game.  Even though the up trend is pushed by a video game, there was an increase in sales in hardware as well.

The video game industry is hoping to make $21 to $23 billion dollars this year, despite a weak economy.