London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Sep 08, 2025

Lockdown boredom drives UK video games market to £7bn record high

Lockdown boredom drives UK video games market to £7bn record high

Gaming fans joined by million of newbies in 2020 resulting in £1.6bn more spent compared with 2019
The UK video games market hit a record £7bn last year as lockdown fuelled an unprecedented boom in the popularity of mobile games, consoles and virtual reality headsets.

The gaming industry has proved to be a coronavirus winner, with tens of millions of consumers looking for relief from indoor boredom. Gaming fans were joined by millions of newbies seeking out home entertainment, resulting in £1.6bn more being spent on games compared with 2019, an unprecedented 30% year-on-year increase.

“The figures confirm just how valuable games proved to people across the country during one of the toughest years of our lives,” said Dr Jo Twist, the chief executive of UK games industry body Ukie, which puts out the annual figures. “We all know how important entertainment, technology and creativity have been over the last year.”

The biggest year in UK gaming history was sparked by the serendipitous timing of the launch of Nintendo’s family-friendly phenomenon Animal Crossing: New Horizons on 20 March, as Boris Johnson informed the public that the nation was going into its first lockdown the following week.

The top seller during the first lockdown, outpacing hardcore gamer favourites such as Call of Duty, Animal Crossing helped fuel a 24% increase in digital game sales for consoles to £1.7bn last year. Total digital sales, including those for mobiles and PCs, climbed 21% to £3.9bn. Overall sales of games software, including “boxed” games, climbed to £4.55bn.

“During the initial Covid lockdown period, when many stores were closed and other entertainment sectors were affected, software sales for Nintendo Switch were up 215% year-on-year,” said Dorian Bloch, senior client director at GfK Entertainment.

Animal Crossing also underpinned a record 75% increase in spending on new consoles to £853m, as the public scrambled to get their hands on the latest home entertainment gaming systems. Last year, overall sales of Nintendo’s Switch outpaced those of the eagerly awaited new PlayStation and Xbox consoles, which hit the market in November.

In addition, the report said that the shift to home working fuelled a 70% increase in sales of PC games hardware to £823m, as consumers out of the eye of bosses sought to “purchase dedicated games computers to ensure home working set-ups could double as entertainment systems”. Total spend on all games hardware rose 61% to £2.26bn.

The lockdown also prompted consumers to experiment with newer technologies with sales of virtual reality hardware, such as headsets, climbing 29% to an all-time high of £129m.

However, it was not all good news for the video games sector as the coronavirus affected parts of the industry that rely on physical engagement.

Income from events plummeted 97% to just £249,000, and book and magazine revenue fell by more than a quarter to £10.5m. With cinemas shut for large parts of last year, revenue generated from game-related films and soundtracks fell by 22% to £23m.

The UK video games industry is the biggest in Europe, and the fifth biggest in the world, behind the gaming juggernauts Japan, South Korea, China and the US.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Court Staff Cover Up Banksy Image of Judge Beating a Protester
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
Elon Musk Poised to Become First Trillionaire Under Ambitious Tesla Pay Plan
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
Burning the Minister’s House Helped Protesters to Win Justice: Prabowo Fires Finance Minister in Wake of Indonesia Protests
Brazil Braces for Fallout from Bolsonaro Trial by corrupted judge
The Country That Got Too Rich? Public Spending Dominates Norway Election
Nearly 40 Years Later: Nike Changes the Legendary Slogan Just Do It
Generations Born After 1939 Unlikely to Reach Age One Hundred, New Study Finds
End to a four-year manhunt in New Zealand: the father who abducted his children to the forests was killed, the three siblings were found
Germany Suspends Debt Rules, Funnels €500 Billion Toward Military and Proxy War Strategy
EU Prepares for War
BMW Eyes Growth in China with New All‑Electric Neue Klasse Lineup
Trump Threatens Retaliatory Tariffs After EU Imposes €2.95 Billion Fine on Google
Tesla Board Proposes Unprecedented One-Trillion-Dollar Performance Package for Elon Musk
US Justice Department Launches Criminal Mortgage-Fraud Probe into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook
Escalating Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America: A Growing Crisis
US and Taiwanese Defence Officials Held Secret Talks in Alaska
Report: Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission in North Korea Ordered by Trump in 2019 Ended in Failure
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Florida Murder Case: The Adelson Family, the Killing of Dan Markel, and the Trial of Donna Adelson
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Big Tech Executives Laud Trump at White House Dinner, Unveil Massive U.S. Investments
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
‘Looks Like a Wig’: Online Users Express Concern Over Kate Middleton
Brand-New $1 Million Yacht Sinks Just Fifteen Minutes After Maiden Launch in Turkey
Here’s What the FBI Seized in John Bolton Raid — and the Legal Risks He Faces
Florida’s Vaccine Revolution: DeSantis Declares War on Mandates
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
"The Situation Has Never Been This Bad": The Fall of PepsiCo
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
The Fashion Designer Who Became an Italian Symbol: Giorgio Armani Has Died at 91
Putin Celebrates ‘Unprecedentedly High’ Ties with China as Gazprom Seals Power of Siberia-2 Deal
China Unveils New Weapons in Grand Military Parade as Xi Hosts Putin and Kim
Queen Camilla’s Teenage Courage: Fended Off Attempted Assault on London Train, New Biography Reveals
Scottish Brothers Set Record in Historic Pacific Row
Rapper Cardi B Cleared of Liability in Los Angeles Civil Assault Trial
Google Avoids Break-Up in U.S. Antitrust Case as Stocks Rise
Couple celebrates 80th wedding anniversary at assisted living facility in Lancaster
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
The White House on LinkedIn Has Changed Their Profile Picture to Donald Trump
"Insulted the Prophet Muhammad": Woman Burned Alive by Angry Mob in Niger State, Nigeria
Trump Responds to Death Rumors – Announces 'Missile City'
Court of Appeal Allows Asylum Seekers to Remain at Essex Hotel Amid Local Tax Boycott Threats
Germany in Turmoil: Ukrainian Teenage Girl Pushed to Death by Illegal Iraqi Migrant
United Krack down on human rights: Graham Linehan Arrested at Heathrow Over Three X Posts, Hospitalised, Released on Bail with Posting Ban
Asian and Middle Eastern Investors Avoid US Markets
Ray Dalio Warns of US Shift to Autocracy
×