ERA: UK game sales fell 30% to £348 million in first half of 2024 due to lack of new major releases

ERA, the UK’s digital entertainment and retail association, has published a report on the state of the domestic market for the first six months of 2024. The data shows a significant decline in video game sales.

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Below are the key takeaways from ERA’s report:

• UK customers spent £348.6 ($452 million) on video games in the first half of 2024, down 29.4% year-over-year;
• Digital game sales amounted to £236.9 million ($307.1 million), down 23% compared to the same period last year, while physical sales fell 40% to £111.7 million ($144.8 million);
• The organization cited a lack of new releases as the major factor behind such a sharp decline;
• “It was a tough first half for the games business with a lack of heavy-hitting releases, but we are optimistic for a strong second half, the traditional time for blockbuster releases,” ERA CEO Kim Bayley said in a statement.

As ERA previously reported, UK consumers spent £4.73 billion ($6.12 billion) on video games in 2023 (+2.9%), adding that “video recaptured its historic position as entertainment’s largest sector [with £4.91 billion], ending a 10 year run of dominance by games.”

According to the Association for UK Interactive Entertainment (Ukie), the country’s games market reached a value of £7.82 billion ($10.1 billion) last year — up 4.4% compared to 2022. This includes not only sales of video games, but also hardware and entertainment content based on gaming IP (film, TV, books, merchandise, etc.).

Ukie reported that software sales grew 4.1% to £5.18 billion ($6.7 billion). Hardware was the second-largest sector, growing 2.1% to £2.22 billion ($2.87 billion).