The video games sector in the U.K. rose to £3.864 billion ($4.859 billion) in 2018, making it larger than the combined revenue of both the video home entertainment and music sectors for the first time.
According to figures from the Entertainment Retailers Association, the gaming market is now double what it was worth in 2007, with three titles — FIFA 19, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 — each selling more than one million physical units in the U.K. in 2018.
The other — and more predictable — big trend for 2018 in the U.K. was the continued growth in streaming. After a sixth successive year of growth — driven by the likes of Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, Steam, Sky, Apple and Google — digital revenues accounted for more than three-quarters (76.1 percent) of entertainment sales value in 2018, the ERA claimed.
Both the biggest selling video and album charts for 2018 were comfortably topped by The Greatest Showman, which sold 2.69 million video units (51.3 percent physical) and 1.62 million albums (51.3 percent physical).
Overall, the entertainment market grew to an all-time high of £7.537 ($9.481 billion).