J. Clement
Research lead covering internet and gaming
Video game market in the United Kingdom - Statistics & Facts
The video gaming market in the United Kingdom (UK) is the biggest in Europe, ranking ahead of Germany and France in terms of annual revenues. The UK video gaming market has fully arrived as a mainstream entertainment option and has seemingly gone from strength to strength. However, despite record revenues and unit sales, consumers are feeling the bite of the current economic downturn in the UK, which is likely to impact the country’s gaming market in 2024.
Driving forces of the UK gaming market
In 2024, the number of video game users in the UK amounted to 37.7 million gamers. With over 55 percent of the population embracing gaming as a form of fun, entertainment, or distraction, the UK’s video game market has come to be valued at 15.02 billion U.S. dollars in the same year, with gaming hardware accounting for the largest share of consumer spending. Additionally, in 2023, online sales accounted for approximately 97.5 percent of video game sales in the United Kingdom.What are the most popular video games in the UK?
In 2023, video game software retail sales revenue in the UK amounted to 4.76 billion British pounds, with digital software sales accounting for the lion’s share of revenue. Unsurprisingly, EA Sports FC 24 was the best-selling video game in the UK that year, with nearly 2.4 million copies sold in the football-obsessed country. The EA Sports FC games, previously known under the FIFA brand, usually feature at the top of the UK’s leaderboard. Second-ranked Hogwarts Legacy is based on the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, another beloved UK media franchise, and was one of the biggest gaming hits of 2024.Hard facts about hardware trends
During the past decade, UK consumer spending on gaming console hardware visibly fluctuated in line with the rollout of new consoles. Retail revenue peaked at 1.13 billion British pounds in 2021, following the release of the next-generation Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. In 2023, annual gaming console hardware sales amounted to 951 million British pounds. That year, approximately 2.38 million video game consoles were sold in the United Kingdom. Improved hardware availability compared to previous years caused console hardware sales in the UK to increase by 9.4 percent year-over-year, with the PlayStation 4 making the biggest jump at 633 percent in annual sales growth.Difficult times ahead for the UK gaming market?
Despite these impressive growth rates, it remains to be seen if this post-COVID gaming industry trajectory can be maintained. During the current cost of living crisis in the UK, consumers will likely cut down on non-essentials and hobbies. Examples of the impact on the UK gaming market include gamers who have not upgraded their hardware to the latest version and who might skip out on such big-ticket purchases for another year, as well as gamers who will not buy the latest video games at full price on release and wait for sales instead.
