Digital Sales Surged in UK Gaming Market in 2018

The UK gaming market (excluding hardware) generated nearly £4 billion in 2018, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA). It has doubled in value since 2007, and is now worth more than the video and music industry combined.

Digital purchases contributed to over £3 billion ($4.85 billion), representing just over 80% of the market. Digital growth equated to 12.5% annually, but physical sales decreased by 2.8%. Therefore, the games market is up 9.1% overall.

These figures come from data supplied by GfK (physical retail), IHS Markit (digital revenue) and GSD (download figures). Digital data also includes microtransactions and loot boxes, subscriptions like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Now, and add-on content.

It supports the downward trend for the physical sales market, however the figures don’t include hardware. In fact, more consoles were sold in 2018 than in 2017. Over 2.4 million consoles were sold in the UK last year with PS4 being the largest contributor. Furthermore, Nintendo Switch saw the largest growth area, with sales increasing by 20%.

Physical purchases are still a strong component of the games retail business. According to ERA, FIFA 19 was the best-seller with 2.5 million units sold. Of these sales, 1.89 million of these were physical. That suggests that physical sales are crucial to AAA releases. Digital sales only accounted to 25% of total games sold. However, this percentage is increasing as 20% of FIFA 18‘s sales were digital last year.

The ERA also revealed the 20 best-selling physical games and how well they sold. The data shows that FIFA 19 and Red Dead Redemption 2 topped the charts with 1.89m and 1.757 m sales, respectively.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe benefited greatly from Switch sales, ranking at No.5. However, it wasn’t the biggest exclusive. That award goes to Marvel’s Spider-Man on PS4. Marvel’s web-slinger made it to No.4 with 676,621 games sold.

God of War surprisingly only managed to reach no. 8, despite huge industry and fan acclaim, and the numerous awards it received during the 2018 Game Awards.

Here are the UKIE/GfK top 20 best-selling games of 2018: