For the 11th year in a row, games outsold video and music in the UK

Video games outsold home video and music in the UK for the 11th time in a row last year, according to a new report.

The Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA) reports that games accounted for 42.1% of total entertainment revenue in 2022.

Sales also reportedly grew by 2.3% compared with 2021, reaching to a total of £4.664 billion.

The victory was a narrow one, however, thanks to a large surge in revenue for video last year, up 14.4% to £4.432 billion.

The report’s video game sales figures take into account physical software sales, digital console downloads, PC and mobile games, as well as “a variety of other subscription and token-based playing mechanisms”.

Its video sales figures, meanwhile, count not only DVD, Blu-ray and 4K disc sales, but also digital rentals and purchases as well as subscriptions to streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime.

As for music – which includes physical CD and vinyl sales as well as subscriptions to services like Spotify – sales grew 3% but at  £1.986 billion the market was still a distant third behind games and video.

According to the report, physical game software continued to see a decline, falling 4.5%.

Physical purchases now account for only 10% of the overall games sector, though this is still taking mobile games and other sales into account. When looking at just physical software sales and digital console sales together, the figures show a 40-60 split in favour of digital.

The report notes that games, video and music have all flourished in the past three years despite the global pandemic and the UK’s fragile economic situation. Since 2019, games sales have risen nearly 24%.

Further reading

Nintendo Switch narrowly topped UK console sales in 2022

While FIFA 23 outsold Modern Warfare 2 to lead the annual software sales chart

“Despite pandemic, political uncertainty and recession, entertainment has continued to soar,” said ERA chairman Ben Drury in a statement. “Growth of nearly 40% since 2019 is extraordinary.

“Few would have believed we would retain the huge bounce in revenues seen when the Covid lockdown kept people at home, but these numbers show that even amid recession, people are determined to maintain their spending on entertainment.”