UK Games Market Down 4.4% in 2024
– 2 min read
Unlike in 2022 and 2023, the largest entertainment market in the UK in 2024 was no longer games, but video. Physical games have fallen particularly sharply, by almost a third.
The Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA) has released its full year UK market data for 2024. Total entertainment sales exceeded £12bn for the first time, more than 50 per cent higher than the total for 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. The video market grew (£5bn), overtaking games (£4.6bn), which fell by 4.4 per cent. Music (£2.39bn) recorded its best result since the "CD era" in 2004.
"The key development in 2024 was a shift away from full game sales with PC download-to-own down 5%, digital console games down 15% and boxed physical games down a massive 35%. The winners are increasingly subscription models with a strong value for money proposition which saw growth of 12%," ERA writes. The largest segment of the market (mobile) grew by 2.6 per cent to £1.6bn. The bestselling game of the year was again EA Sports FC 25 with 2.9 million units sold, 80 per cent of which were in digital formats. ERA CEO Kim Bayley: "After the breakneck growth of recent years, it is no surprise that the games market has slowed down, but it remains a giant. Despite the attractions of digital business models to developers, we believe physical still has a role to play."
ERA CEO Kim Bayley: "2024 was a banner year for music, with streaming and vinyl taking the sector to all-time-high records in both value and volume. This is the stunning culmination of music's comeback which has seen sales more than double since their low point in 2013. We can now say definitively - music is back." Speaking of music: Consumption reached the equivalent of 201.4 million albums per year. Streaming alone generated the equivalent of 178 million albums. In video, the biggest driver was subscriptions to services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+, almost 90 per cent of the sector's revenue.
ERA Chair Linda Walker: "We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the dynamics of the entertainment business. Digital services and retailers have become the drivers of the market. For decades it was new release activity which most drove revenues. In 2024 subscription sales are now a far more significant factor."
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