Average selling price of games rose nearly 7% in the UK last year
The average amount of money spent on a video game in the UK last year was £36.47, a rise of 6.7%.
This is data from GfK, courtesy of the Entertainment Retailer’s Association Yearbook, and based on physical retail sales. In terms of full-game downloads, data firm Omdia estimates that the average selling price was £15.19 last year, which is a rise of 7.3% year-on-year.
The rise is a little below the inflation rate in the UK of just over 10%.
Since GamesIndustry.biz started reporting these numbers in 2017, the average selling price of games has risen by 12%.
The increased cost of games has become most apparent with the rise to £70 in the UK for major AAA titles. Some of last year's biggest games including FIFA 23 (2.5m sales), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (1.68m sales), God of War Ragnarok (670,000 sales) and Horizon Forbidden West (530,000 sales) all carried this higher price tag.
In terms of the state of the games market, money spent in physical stores (bricks and mortar outlets) rose ever-so-slightly to £150 million. However, these outlets -- which includes stores such as GAME, Tesco and Argos -- represented just 3.2% of sales, with the remaining 96.8% coming via online stores or digital download platforms.
Looking specifically at physical game sales, High Street retail (GAME, Argos, indie stores) saw its sales increase to £110 million, a big rise over the £84.1 million in 2021 (which was the result of the pandemic). However, it remains far below the pre-pandemic figure of £227.4 million back in 2019.
Supermarkets continue to cut back space dedicated to games, and last year stores such as Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's generated just £40 million from selling games. Supermarkets -- once one of the biggest powers in
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