The U.S. economy has definitely seen better days, but the gaming industry, on the other hand, is a whole different story. It seems that gasoline and housing prices, coupled with the lowest Consumer Confidence index in years, haven’t hindered the gaming industry, not one bit.

The nation’s biggest game and game console retailer seems to be raking in the dough, big-time. Last year alone, GameStop’s sales increased 33 percent and the company’s profit increased by a whopping 82 percent.

And that’s not all. With games like Grand Theft Auto IV coming up, the company expects more than $100 million in a single week, since Take-Two Interactive has more pre-orders than expected. There’s also World of Warcraft that has a user-base of 10 million, and they’re more than excited about each new expansion.

Also, a lot of success is attributed to Wii and DS platforms that have stepped away from traditional gaming circles and embraced a much wider audiences. So, we guess the moral of this story is – economies come and go, but gamers and gaming are here to stay.

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