Fancy some numbers? Listen, I don’t like maths either – or math as our American friends will point out as they mutter something under their breath about gratuitously tacking letters onto the end of words – but when it’s figures relating to videogames and how well the industry is doing (and, most importantly, how much better it’s doing compared to others fields of entertainment) then I’m all ears.
As it turns out, 2015 was a pretty great year for UK games sales figures and Steam sales overall.
Games are the best. They’re so good, we made a list.
Steam enjoyed its best year yet, pulling in over 3,000 games in 2015 (compared to just 1900 in 2014) which made the paid Steam games market worth over $3.5 billion last year. According to market research group Newzoo, the PC games market worldwide is now estimated to be worth around $27 billion.
Steam Spy reckons Fallout 4 was the most purchased Steam game of 2015, shifting 2,270,216 copies and raking in over $122.5 million in November. While it’s not a 100% accurate service, Steam Spy is nevertheless a handy resource. December was, expectedly, the busiest month of the year with well over $60.7 million games sold to the sum of over $436.1 million.
It’s worth noting that not all copies redeemed on Steam were sold through Steam and vice versa but no matter, that’s a shit-tonne of business.
On UK soils, videogames led the way in sales across all entertainment products – so say the Entertainment Retailers Association. Videogames also generated £2.8bn in revenue in 2015, sticking it right to music and video. Videogames, then, are again the largest and fastest growing sector in UK entertainment.
Dr Jo Twist, CEO of trade body Ukie, said this of the figures: “These statistics show once again that games is the biggest and fastest growing entertainment sector, increasing revenues by 10% in 2015. With incentives such as the Video Games Tax Relief and our outstanding creative talent we look forward to another exciting year ahead for games.”
TL;DR: Games are pure amazing!