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Compared to many other creative industries, the video games market is one of the youngest. Even so, it has been maturing at a rapid rate, seeing explosive growth especially in the past few years. On a national level, the industry has broken records, with 2021 being the biggest year ever for video games in the UK.
Each year, Ukie releases their annual report breaking down the video games market in the UK. Described as “the trade body for the UK's fast-moving, innovative and creative games and interactive entertainment sector,” the company has now released their latest 2021 report.
According to Ukie, the UK video games market grew to record high levels in 2021, with consumers spending a whopping £7.16 Billion.
This growth was mostly aided by the additional sale of hardware across many video game sectors. Console sales grew by a large 32.9% over 2020, with VR headsets faring even better, growing by a signficint 41.9%. All this helped to push hardware growth to 17.4% totaling £2.66 Billion.
The software side showed regressive sales figures, but only by 6.32% and still remained far above pre-2020 numbers with £4.28 Billion in revenue. While likely to be due partially to the easing of lockdown rules, allowing more people to go outside thereby spending less time gaming, it is also possible that this drop can be attributed to launch software for new consoles typically being less ambitious or exciting than later games. Undoubtedly the hardware shortages also factored into the softer sales of video game software.
Despite this, it is impressive to see the industry performing so well in the UK. With the most recent data applied, the UK is now the 4th biggest market for video games, surpassing Germany and South Korea, and only behind Japan, the US and China. It will be interesting to see what Ukie’s 2022 report will look like next year. The full report can be found HERE.
KitGuru says: What do you think of the report? What statistic caught your eye the most? How much did you spend on gaming in 2021? Let us know down below.
