With the year officially over, it?s time to take a look back at 2017 in gaming and how consumers spent their money. According to the Entertainment Retailers Association (via GamesIndustry.biz), gamers in the United Kingdom spend £3,353 billion on games software, which is an eye popping number and only speaks to how popular games are becoming.
According to GfK and IHS data, physical game sales saw a slight rise of 2.1%, generating £792.4 million in sales. Yet, as seems to be the trend, digital games and the sales of them continue to rise by a large margin. In 2017, digital sales grew 12.1%, bringing in £2.56 billion alone last year. Overall, the entertainment industry (which includes video and music) was worth £7.24 billion in 2017, with 71.9% of all entertainment sales coming from digital sales. Speaking about the growth in digital sales and the boom in money, ERA CEO Kim Bayley noted that digital services are bringing in an ever increasing amount of services to the UK crowd. ?In the past the growth of the market tended to be dependent on the release schedules of games publishers, film studios and record labels. Now we are seeing a market which is also driven by digital platforms and technologies.”
There?s more information to be found over at GamesIndustry.biz, but the general gist seems to be something we all can see: the digital market is growing at a ridiculous rate, and if it isn?t already, it seems like it will be the primary way to obtain and watch content ...