MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Sales of video games in the UK have grown for the first time in five years.
According to the Entertainment Retailer’s Association, based on GfK Chart-Track and IHS data, revenue generated by game sales grew by 6.6 per cent in 2013.
But that is mostly down to huge growth in digital, with 1.18bn made from the sale of downloadable mobile, console, PC, and tablet games. That’s an increase of 16.4 per cent over 2012.
In fact, for the first time, digital sales have overtaken physical. 1.015bn was made from the sale of physical games, a slight dip of 2.9 per cent over the year before.
The biggest selling digital games of 2013 included Minecraft, Candy Crush and Angry Birds.
It means game sales totalled 2.19bn for 2013.
According to ERA statistics, video games is now the No.1 entertainment format for the second year in a row, just ahead of video and well ahead of music. However, this is just in revenue terms, and video games are considerably more expensive.
