Ampere Analysis: UK console, PC and mobile games revenue declined in 2022

gamesindustry.biz:

UK spending on video games dropped 1.6% to £5.38 billion in 2022, according to the latest report from Ampere Analysis.

The data firm says it is the first decline for the UK market since 2012. However, the numbers remain 23% higher than 2019 (pre-pandemic levels). The games market received an artificial surge in sales caused by the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.

Outside of the post-lockdown drop, the UK market also saw a fall in spending towards the end of the 2022. Ampere says that the decline is due to the economic situation in the UK, including the growing cost of living crisis. The biggest declines during the period were across in-game monetisation, which covers more casual mobile titles.

The mobile games market suffered a 3% drop in sales to £1.66bn. According to Ampere's consumer research, this was due to younger gamers (16 to 34-year-olds) and older gamers (55 to 64-year-olds) spending less time on games post-pandemic. The other major challenge for mobile developers is the new privacy rules from Apple, which has disrupted the app developers' abilities to target specific consumers through their marketing. This was particularly felt by more specialist titles and apps, Ampere says.

Over in the console space, we've already reported on the overall games software sales. But including DLC and in-game monetisation, Ampere estimates that the console space dropped 1% in 2022 to £2.89 billion. The drop in spending would have been worse had it not been for the growth in subscription service revenue. Without subscription services, the overall market would have dropped 3.2%, the firm estimates.

Subscriptions may have grown revenue-wise, but it wasn't without its own challenges. Ampere says that there was a drop of 300,000