Ukie has announced that the UK video game consumer market value in 2022 was £7.05 billion. The figure was released in the latest Consumer Market Valuation report and represents a stabilisation following several years of unprecedented growth. Although this is a 5.6% dip on 2021’s figure, it’s still 17% above pre pandemic levels.
The Consumer Market Valuation report measures the wider cultural consumption of games in the UK beyond, but still including video game hardware and software sales.
Charted against consumer spending data over the past decade, the 2022 valuation aligns with projections, with the overall value up 17% compared to pre-pandemic figures. The UK video game market was valued at £5.3 billion in 2019, which is £6.03 billion when adjusted for inflation.
Software sales have seen solid growth compared to 2019, up 6.6% against 2019’s inflation-adjusted figure, while hardware sales exceeded 2019’s figures by 38%. This was expected, as 2019 marked the final full year of the previous generation of consoles, with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S launching in 2020.
Compared to 2021, sales of all forms of video game hardware in 2022 were down 19% to £832 million, with console revenue down 27%, PC game hardware 14% and VR hardware by 6.6% year-on-year.
This aligns with historical hardware sales figures, where similar declines were seen two to three years after new generation console hardware hit the market.
Software revenues remained steady, growing 0.4% to £4.57 billion, thanks in part to growth in digital PC and mobile games sales. Mobile software was up 11% year-on-year to £1.43 billion.
Digital console revenues were down by 4.7%, while boxed game sales declined 4.3%, making 2022 the only year in the past decade where boxed software has seen better year-on-year performance than digital console sales. This suggests a levelling off of the decline in boxed software sales over the past decade as digital formats have grown in popularity. The pre-owned market was also down to £21 million.
According to the ERA Yearbook 2023, top performing titles in the UK in 2022 include Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga developed by Cheshire-based TT Games, high-profile PlayStation exclusives God of War Ragnarök and Horizon Forbidden West, Pokémon Legends: Arceus on Switch and the critically acclaimed Elden Ring.
For the first time the valuation report covered the UK market share of UK-made games based on research from Ukie and data provided by GfK Entertainment. In 2022, 16% of the £4.57bn game software total was spent on games developed by British game companies.
Streaming and game video content fell by 4.8% in 2022, which is an anticipated decline following the pandemic boom period as overall industry figures level out post-pandemic.
Big screen video game adaptations Uncharted and Sonic The Hedgehog 2 contributed to a significant year-on-year increase for television and soundtracks to £54.8 million. This was the biggest year for films based on video games IP at the UK box office ever, up 66% from 2019’s figure of £33 million, adjusted for inflation.
Data from video streaming platforms for video game-related programming like Paramount’s Halo series is not factored into the 2022 valuation, however this is being explored for next year’s report.
Toys and merchandising saw a 7.7% increase year-on-year, bucking the trend of a 3% fall in the wider toy market, with Pokémon merchandise being the top performer in a year with multiple high-profile new entries in the long-running franchise.
Book and magazine revenues were up 17% year-on-year to £13.9 million.
Event revenues recovered significantly in 2022, more than tripling the figure for 2021 when events were still being heavily impacted by the pandemic. This recovery was driven by a return of established UK events such as Insomnia, and boosted by one-off international events heading to the UK, like the Pokémon World Championships in London.
In 2022 event revenues hit £4.35 million, which is still 56% lower than the inflation-adjusted pre-pandemic figure of £9.93 million for 2019, so there is still room to grow as confidence returns both among attendees and exhibitors.
The UK consumer market valuation was compiled by Ukie with the support of ABC, BFI, GfK Entertainment, Nielsen, NPD, the Official Charts Company and Omdia.
Year-on-year data for 2022 has been calculated using the revised figure of £7.47 billion for 2021.
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