£181m Xmas bonanza as industry sets out Q4 ad spend

This is the quarter where the UK games industry finally turns things around – and publishers and retailers are splashing the cash to make sure of it.

The UK games industry will have splurged 181m between the start of October and Christmas, MCV research has shown. It is almost double the 97m spent last year and even more than the astonishing 139m splashed out on ads in 2008.

The UK’s top marketers hope that by spending big they can turnaround what has been a slow sales year.

This Christmas’ line-up is also far stronger than in 2009, with the likes of World of Warcraft, FIFA, Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Just Dance 2 and GT5 expected to perform strongly.

MCV understands that Microsoft’s controller-less Kinect will get the lion’s share of the marketing support.

It’s been a successful year for the UK ad industry overall. Data tracker Nielson said this week that UK marketing spend was up 10.7 per cent in H1 2010.