Gaming worth more than video and music combined

[macGamr]

The video games sector now accounts for more than half of the UK's entire entertainment market, according to a new report.

The industry is worth £3.86bn ($4.85bn) - more than double its value in 2007 - said the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA).

That makes it more lucrative than video and music combined.

The success is largely down to three games: Fifa 19, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.

The games market has grown, despite the fact that the physical console and PC games market shrank slightly in 2018, and digital also had a modest 12.5% growth.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46746593

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As a non-gamer, I can't say much about this, but I suppose this is to be expected even when games these days appear far too realistic and uhm, Call Of Duty is still a thing apparently.

[Moonface]

Not surprising. Purchasing music seems to be going out of fashion when you can just go on Spotify, and unless this changed, when I was still at my last place of work they were getting rid of their entertainment section due to people rarely buying movies or music. That aside, the industry will be bigger than it was in 2007.

CoD is still a thing because as much as it's fun for everyone and their mother to say "lulz CoD" it still has a large fanbase and it sells well. Is the franchise oversaturated with yearly releases? Absolutely. But it's not like consumers are giving Activision a reason to change that at all.

As for realism, games with that art style are going to look more realistic as time goes on, just as CGI in movies will look ever more realistic if that's the style it's being applied for. However games have been trying for realism since the 90's, but there are plenty of big titles out there that don't try for that art style.

[Mr EliteL]

The success is largely down to three games: Fifa 19, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.

Had that line the most. Gaming didn't get to where it is now because of them. They're the most recent to choose yes, but makes it look like these were so huge, everything else didn't have any impact.

Asda did lower the entertainment section, then got moved over to George in our town. The section is...about the same, although the gaming area is a bit bigger due to Nintendo stuff returning to our store.

Agree with Moony though. Fifa and CoD sale like hotcakes, Steam and such I assume are included under the PC side(minus the mobile and free games like the article said weren't accounted for). Plus popularity in other franchises helps the push for gaming over video and music.

[Moonface]

Those three games are likely the biggest revenue makers for 2018. However to say those three games are why the growth has increased so much since 2007 is grossly incorrect, but not surprising to read from BBC or any other news outlet that doesn't really know anything about games.

[Grungie]

I'm also not surprised. With how music and video streaming services are, the only people who buy physical copies, or buy them at all, are the die hards in those hobbies. It's almost at the point when people visit my house and see my music collection and freak out and think I bought that all overnight, and it's not even that large.

[ShiraNoMai]

Yeah I'm of the mind that there are more people with a collector hobby in the video game sector of the market than those in the music or especially video market. I really can't see the physical video market lasting too much longer, honestly. Being in the music industry myself, of an audience that still collects physical media, the music market is gonna probably take just a little longer to dwindle.

[Grungie]

Idk, I can see the Bluray/DVD marking going the way of the vinyl industry where it's small, but has a dedicated fanbase. Sometimes it's harder to see how a scene is when you're not in the hobby. It's like when I talk about my vinyl collecting at work, and people who don't care about music are baffled when I talk about how thriving the collecting scene is, and new releases/re-releases.

I can see the Bluray/DVD collecting being like the music scene where fans of certain genres are more dedicated to buying the physical copies sort of like how certain music scenes are more about collecting their albums in specific formats. Cassettes are really popular in stuff like underground punk and vaporwave, and certain metal genres aren't too keen on vinyl.

[ShiraNoMai]

True, that's a valid point. The audience that listens to my boss' music have trouble even grasping the concept of digital downloads, so even going so far as to attempt that with digital video seems nigh impossible until they phase out.

And to your other point of specific niche markets (not necessarily by age bracket, but through hobby collecting), there's perhaps a case situation in which no physical media ever truly dies. Then we also have the cases of digital media becoming inaccessible through closure of outlets that provide said digital media services, such as the Wii Shop closure, where having physical media makes you purchase less indispensable through sheer ability to continually access it outside of the realms of the market that provides them.

[Moonface]

And to your other point of specific niche markets (not necessarily by age bracket, but through hobby collecting), there's perhaps a case situation in which no physical media ever truly dies. Then we also have the cases of digital media becoming inaccessible through closure of outlets that provide said digital media services, such as the Wii Shop closure, where having physical media makes you purchase less indispensable through sheer ability to continually access it outside of the realms of the market that provides them.

I think PC is the only system that could ever manage to live without physical releases, simply because if the official source for accessing a game goes away, you're guaranteed to find a website that will let you download it still. Technically other systems could do the same given their games could be emulated on PC, but that's likely more limited and difficult than just putting a PC game up for download on another source.

[ShiraNoMai]

PC's accessibility is much smaller than the mainstream market, I should add. Emulation of newer software has become increasingly harder as well, so having a source and location to place digital games without a launcher of some kind becomes difficult, I imagine.

[WR91]

Now THAT's what I'm talking about!