ERA: The UK Entertainment market in 2024 - games are no longer the largest segment

The video entertainment market grew larger than games for the first time since 2015. A lot of numbers and insights of the UK market are inside.

Mar 12, 2025

The company has shared preliminary figures previously, but now it has released a full report. The report includes data from 2015 that cover video, music & gaming segments, and I will focus on the gaming market figures.

Overall state of the Entertainment Market in the UK

The UK's combined market for music, video, and games reached £12 billion in 2024. The market has been growing since 2015.
For the first time since 2015, games are no longer the largest segment of the market. The gaming market decreased from £4.828 billion in 2023 to £4.615 billion in 2024. The video market leads with £5.002 billion in 2024.

The share of games in the UK's overall revenue decreased from 48% in 2015 to 38% in 2024. Meanwhile, the share of video content revenue grew from 34% to 42%, and the music market's share increased from 18% to 20%.

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The growth in the UK's entertainment segment occurred due to digital content. In 2015, physical distribution accounted for 44% of sales, but this figure dropped to 7% in 2024.

£9.32 out of every £10 spent by British people on entertainment goes to digital content.
Digitalization had the most significant impact on the video market, with only 3% of sales coming from physical copies in 2024. In games, physical sales accounted for 7%, and in music, 14%.

With the rise of digitalization, the share of revenue from subscription services also grew. In 2024, they accounted for 76.3% of the entire entertainment segment's revenue in the UK.

❗️ERA also provides figures for the gaming market, noting that 55% of the UK gaming market's revenue comes from content rental. The company includes the entire mobile market, including microtransactions, in "rental." I don't entirely agree with this approach, so I won't highlight these figures.

The number of retailers selling entertainment content in the UK has significantly decreased since 2015, with music stores being the most affected.

People in the UK are spending more money on leisure, both at home and outside.

However, British people spend only 3% of their funds on games, music, and video entertainment. The largest share goes to food and drinks (39%).

Gaming industry in the UK in 2024

The overall gaming market size decreased by 4.4% to £4.61 billion.

Digital content sales decreased by 1% to £4.29 billion. Physical sales fell by 34.5% to £322 million. Retail sales of gaming hardware decreased by 25.5% to £693 million.
36.2% of British gamers play on mobile phones; 24.9% on home consoles, and 18.8% on PC.

PlayStation Plus (53.6% of respondents use it) and Xbox Game Pass (33.6%) are the most popular subscription services in the market.
A significant portion of the UK gaming market's revenue comes from subscriptions and microtransactions in PC and console games—40%. Mobile game microtransactions are second in revenue at 34%.

Digital Gaming Market in the UK

In 2024, spending on console subscriptions increased by 12.2% to £559.5 million.

Console game sales declined the most (by 15.4%), as did casual PC game sales (by 15.8%). The latter is a smaller segment, but poor console game sales resulted in over £100 million in lost revenue.
The mobile segment performed well in 2024, growing by 2.6% to £1.585 billion. Revenue from microtransactions increased by 2.1% (to £1.457 billion); full game sales rose by 3.1% (to £42.6 million); and subscription revenue grew by 13% (to £85.6 million).

Physical Gaming Market in the UK

Home console sales in the UK fell by 34.9% in monetary terms and by 26.4% in unit numbers in 2024.

Physical game sales decreased by 34.5% in monetary terms. The PlayStation 5 accounted for 41% of all sold copies, and the Nintendo Switch accounted for 40%.

Retail gaming revenue plummeted in 2024, even compared to the negative trends of recent years.

Looking at game sales, Sony holds 51% of the UK market, Nintendo has 41%, and Microsoft has 8%.

In hardware sales, the PlayStation 5 was the leading console in the UK market in 2024, accounting for 60% of all sales. The Xbox Series had 22%, and the Nintendo Switch had 18%.

One of the few bright spots in 2024 was the accessories market. Revenue increased by 13% to £602.7 million, and the number of units sold rose to 11.4 million (a 4.9% increase).

The average price of a physical game copy in 2024 decreased by 11.4% to £31.63. The average cost of a digital copy fell by 12.6% to £13.98.

❗️It's important to note that predominantly major releases (with high prices) are sold in physical format, while digital formats offer more price diversity.

2024 charts in the UK

EA Sports FC 25, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and Hogwarts Legacy were the best-selling games of 2024. Notably, Hogwarts Legacy had less than 50% digital sales.

The DualSense controller was the best-selling accessory in the UK market by a significant margin.

Source