The gaming industry is slowing down, perhaps even coming to a halt, as one of the most important countries in the world sees a decline in the first six months of 2024 that is hard to imagine.

Worldwide, game sales are down, but in one country it has reached a significant level. In fact, we’re seeing this in Europe (especially around the Xbox, which has been the subject of rumors that Microsoft might stop selling the console in this region!), but in the UK we’ve seen a 30% drop in the first half of the year. In the first six months of 2024, we didn’t see a similar number of major games released as twelve months earlier.

According to the Entertainment Retailers Association, in-store and digital sales combined were down 29.4%. Still, there were significantly more games sales than music (vinyl, CDs, downloads), although the music market closed up 7.9% (£163.8m). Retail sales were down 40% (to £111.7m) and digital sales were down 23% (to £263.9m). There are many reasons for these results, but one obvious option is that people don’t have the money to buy games. Digital games are cheaper and can often be bought at a significant discount from an external website.

Kim Bayley, CEO of the Entertainment Retailers Association, said that the first half of 2024 was difficult for the games industry due to a lack of major titles, but they’re optimistic about the second half because that’s when the bigger titles tend to come. What are those this year? Silent Hill 2 Remake, Super Mario Party Jamboree, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 or Assassin’s Creed Shadows could be considered as such.

The UK is facing a living wage crisis, so people have to play to survive, so buying games is not a priority for them. For the first time since 2012, gaming revenues have fallen behind the movie industry! There is a reason why the games industry has seen mass layoffs, canceled games and closed studios.

Source: WCCFTech, Entertainment Retailers Association