According to a new report, it's been a bit of a rough year for the UK's video game market.
As per a detailed breakdown from UK trade body UKIE, the market's overall valuation has decreased for the first time in five years. At a glance, the damage isn't too bad — a drop from £7.82 billion in 2023 to £7.63 billion in 2024 — but it's the underlying statistics that warrant some concern.
For starters, the physical games market continues to fall off a cliff. Already at an all-time low over recent years thanks to the rise of digital purchases, a steep year-on-year decline of 34% saw spending plummet to new depths.
It's now estimated that boxed game sales account for just 4% of total spending in the UK.
Naturally, the flipside is that digital spending increased by 3.5% on consoles, while mobile game spending saw an 8.1% jump.
Speaking of consoles, hardware sales have slowed significantly year-on-year. Compared to 2023, sales are down a considerable 24% in 2024. There'll be many factors that feed into this decline, of course, but it's hard to look past the fact that this console generation is just so expensive.