80% Of UK Gaming Revenue Came From Digital Sales In 2018, Industry Made Almost £4bn In Total

You only have to look at that chart to see why Nintendo as big as they are worlwide always struggle to crack Europe vs Japan and USA.

If the likes of

Red Dead Redeption
Call of Duty
Assassins Creed
Far Cry
GTA
Tomb Raider
Spider Man

were available for Switch, it might see Nintendo close that gap. There's a few there I would like to play myself but I wont be buying another console to do so.

@Morph problem here though is the switch cannot even play a trimmed down version of any of those games. Assassin's Creed and rdr especially. Getting even the games we have now took a good deal of effort to make happen. Switch users should count themselves lucky. Call of Duty has been getting into the 100gig territory as of late, along with a few other titles, so I wouldnt expect the switch to get those games either based on that alone. Which is a problem rdr2 faces in addition to world simulation density and graphical fidelity. It's also the sort of thing that makes me take these frostbite rumors with a bit of salt. That engine is already garbage to work with, I highly doubt that they managed to get scaling features working as well as say unreal or unity. It would probably take some custom work, which I imagine Ubisoft is likely doing with snowdrop, the only engine they have working on switch right now.

Switch will continue to get good games, but they will be Nintendo games. Occasionally an indie or 3rd party game will see success, but it'll be a title that really doesn't push technical boundaries, just the boundaries of what we expect from a game.

No surprises that Fifa sales are largely physical. Most people probably buy it knowing it will be traded within a year.

@NotSoCryptic while I agree with the points you make, its to simplistic to say that trimmed down versions of the games wouldn't work. It's really down to the publishers to want to make them work and how trimmed down(customised) they are, like EA (amazingly) in the case of Fifa.

They certainly could work, even if it means having unique versions exclusive to Switch, its whether publishers think the market is there which historically admittedly it has not been.

@NotSoCryptic

The boundaries of what we expect for a game is 10x more important than pushing technical boundaries imo. Games that focus on being creative and fun are the best kind, and this is coming from someone who games on PC as well as Switch. Only two of the games on his list aren't monetized to nickel and dime the consumer (well, actually 3 if you count RDR2 but its online component is half the package and it's very anti consumer)

@justin233 chances are slim that'll ever happen. People have been proclaiming physical media is dead for nearly 2 decades now. Yet I'm still seeing vinyl and DVD discs being used in an age of flac audio and 4k Blu-ray. In a weird sort of twist you can still find portable CD players on amazon filled with all kinds of modern features like Bluetooth support. Again the MP3 was supposed to kill that and we finally have DRM free MP3 services like Amazon music. I still buy Blu-ray music discs and CDs depending on what it is. While I do have Netflix and Amazon prime video, I still get physical movies just like everyone else. Video streaming has become more of a replacement for the rental store which historically has always done substantial profits over the retail releases of those movies. Some movies people would rather not own. Not denying that video purchases happen, in fact the rise of the triple set for a Blu-ray, 4k disc, and digital copy this quickly is quite telling of the state of things. Digital copy is more for the technically illiterate who cant rip their own discs. Those services like movies anywhere have all kinds of wacky availability. Even the studios behind those movies that should be available to all services have loophole films that'll restrict availability.

I guess what I'm saying is, expect digital to become more popular as it is filling a hole left behind by physical rental services. Digital sales events generate a lot of revenue for old games by putting them on the cheap. Then you have those people who don't care where they get their favorite content and never have any kind of relationship associated with it, like those who give an old book they cherrish to a friend because they might enjoy it. Those people still exist. They will continue to do so. I would fore see a discless machine arise for every 1st party, but we won't see physical media machines disappear either, though they may become the premium sku going forward. Game pass services will become more normal as well, I feel like ps now will start leading that. Nintendo switch classics seems to be Nintendo's attempt at this, though I think they fail to understand the core need here.

@NotSoCryptic I do agree with some of your points but there is a lot more that could be done by third parties than they are doing now.
Ubisoft, for instance, developed an exclusive Assassins Creed game for the PS Vita and after it was ported to PS3 and 360. So the Switch can certainly run an AC game, either an old port or a new one developed with the console in mind.
Also, after seeing Doom and Wolfenstein running decently on the Switch it is hard to believe that it could not run CoD or a Battlefield game if scaled back or, again, developed for the console exclusively.
Bottom line is: when there is a will, there is a way.
So far there is no will...

I wish I could find the comment, but I distinctly remember Sligeach Eire proclaiming that eShop sales of games were not significant.

I miss that guy. He was great comic relief.

This states this is based off a study, yet no links to sources or where the information came from. I find it hard to believe that 80% of gaming revenue in the UK came from digital sales. Maybe this is also including mobile revenue which is 100% digital sales wise. If that's the case maybe it's more likely. However it still seems really high. I know personally I buy about 75% physical, only games I get digitally are generally indy titles that are smaller and do not take up large space, or any games on PC because I'm 100% digital there since I don't even have a CD player and it's much harder to find physical media for PC. I'd like to see real numbers and just see consoles, PC's, mobile all separated out otherwise this is just a number and doesn't tell me much I feel.

I have a question. If they can only give a chart of physical game sales, because they don't have the data on digital sales, then how can they know what proportion is digital sales?

Also, I'm going to assume that a huge proportion of that 80% digital will be mobile transactions and not console gaming.

@Frenean I mean no disrespect when I say the following. However there is a serious disconnect with your opinion and what is needed to make a game and what might constitute fun. For some gamers the shallow popcorn games are what they after, they aren't looking for a grind or intricate puzzles. They might be looking for a dazzling power fantasy that exercises the best in simulation and visuals. Transversely there are games that have their fun tightly wound into the simulation and those take CPUs that can handle a lot of physics calculations and animation adjustments in 1/30th of a second or less. Graphics aren't the only things games need all that processing power for at the end of the day. If that was the case we wouldn't have seen the CPU evolve in the console in the ways we have in the past 25 years. The cell processor and the emotion engine are a testament to those needs regardless of the issues that came with those CPUs. This is a problem the switch faces. Open world for example has a ton of streaming features that are very CPU intensive. Calculating what segments of the world to load and unload. Then it takes on animation blending that needs to be packed for delivery to the GPU, otherwise people start to get slapped in the face with a sense of jaring out of place animations. That can result in a rework for the switch. There is also the compromising of the artists' vision. You have the designers included in that. We haven't even covered the full arm of titles that are visually driven.

I don't bblame you for not being aware. There are a lot of games and genres put there. There are even games that require no rendering at all or do things so simpky like that swan title on ps3 that using textures is Almost pointless. However it uses the hardware in other ways that would have been difficult if not impossible on ps2 to provide a satisfying experience. That's where we sit with these bigger games. It isn't just the graphics, but you would be taking away from the game by shoehorning it on to a machine it was never meant to play on. Some games can do this elegantly, other games can not. We cannot let our definition of what fun is dictate what fun is in actuality, something the player has to decide for themselves. We cannot arbitrarily decide that video games do not need graphics, just because the design of a specific subset of games allows for it.

I imagine a lot of this digital revenue will be from DLC and stupid loot boxes.

Yup, and less and less reason to shop at the overpriced HMV, hence its recent troubles.

Course, with games getting discounted more digitally than physically these days and even the not best selling games going as low as £3 or even free with a subscription like XBox Gold or PSN.

Physical will still have a place. For one thing, very space saving for a system like Switch with limited expansion options (Unlike XBONE or PS4 that have disc installs for everything) but yeah, digital is becoming the norm. Things like Limited Run Games might become more and more common while digital becomes an unstoppable monster.....

@dougphisig Yeah, this includes mobile, PC, micro-transactions, season passes, DLC, PS+, Xbox Live, Nintendo Switch Online subs, and every digital-only indie game that doesn't have a physical equivalence.

@tourjeff when I say ac I was speaking to a post black flag release. I can tell you from experience with anvil in my career at one point, that titles like the ezio collection or anything predating ac unity can run on switch and probably do so on par with the PS4. I don't think anyone questions that. I'd even rally behind a Mass effect trilogy release on switch that would run better than it's 360 and ps3 counter parts. However ac after black flag or rogue are using older more condensed engines that are not running the kind of background simulations and just overall hardware handling that a title like Odyssey or Syndicate was dealing with. A lot was added to those games to make them do what they do. Item pools that where likely impossible for anvil on ps3 were doable now. Rpg systems we now take for granted were impossible for some genres in past generations of hardware to put into certain genres. You can see symptoms of this in destiny as the last gen versions started to lack parity in their dlc and updates. Many of which were quality of life changes and left off entirely new areas and bosses.

We have to also take into account that ac liberation for example was a far simpler game than say unity. It's lowest common denominator was the vita for which it was designed specifically for, not an Xbox One launch system. Game engines evolve and the engines that make them up evolve with them. The graphics engine is what everyone focuses on when they talk about porting. They don't take into account things like the sound engine, the simulation engine, or oddly enough the network engine that drives these games. As well as the work put into these components through countless tools already trying to optimize the hell out of the assets being thrown into them. Scripts for example could be optimized down, but developers literally try to do that already on huge AAA games. Going as far as trying to compile down this inefficient bit of code written by someone who lacks understanding of the underlying machine and engines that run them. I imagine a few of south parks issues on switch were caused by trying to cram a game that depended on 8 gigs of RAM into the switches 4 gig memory space for example. Especially that game save bug. That's a game that just worries about maintaining show parity and does things differently from stick of truth. I really admire the work put into tfbw, but that same level of work won't run on a ps3 without heavy modifications. It got a lot of work just to make it function on switch and was still a mess at launch and probably is still a mess. Not even sure if Ubisoft is still working the problem!s of that game. I still get a few soft locks that I don't ever get on PS4 or PC.

Hopefully this opens your eyes a bit. It's really hard to convey things on a low level that people can't see. South park is the best example I can think of where people expect one thing because of stick of truth, but don't understand what went into the fractured but whole that make it impossible to work on older hardware due to such higher performance needs. The games look the same, but the engine underneath and the systems driving those engines is unique in such a way that doing !ore than dropping resolutions on things won't fix it to run on switch without investigation. Thankfully a game like south park is workable, but what has changed I nodyssey would make it impossible to run on switch without losing part of the games soul in the process.

@Octane Yeah I didn't think about micro-transactions as well which is bleeding the dang industry dry. This doesn't really tell you much though when it comes to actual physical vs digital game sales which I think is what most people are more interested in.

Considering when Smash released in the UK, I still think it cracking the top 20 is pretty impressive.

The UK certainly seems to like their soccer football.

@dougphisig But it does fit the narrative that digital sales are taking over and we as well go all digital now, because it's eventually happening. At least, that's what the big publishers want.

"...That means when it comes to AAA releases, digital sales only account for around 25 per cent of the games sold"

Most people who pay full price for a game buy physical. And just inflate "digital sales" with micro-transactions and expansions.

@Morph all these series except for red dead have been on Nintendo consoles (and handhelds) in the past, both on instances where Nintendo crashed the competition (Wii/DS gen) or was crashed by the competition (Wii U gen). Guess what they both have in common? These games didn't make an ounce of a difference. I don't think anybody bought a Wii for the multiple Call of Duties it received or the Wii U for the two Assassin's Creed games. They're a nice bonus, and good to have, but that's it

@Octane Yeah publishers would definitely like it that way i'm sure. Here in the US though I think it's going to be a bit longer before it's possible, because there is so much of the US that does not have the option of having high speed internet. I'm lucky enough to be in a small town that has had a company run fiber through out it, but most smaller towns just don't have great options. Digital also just has so many problems because you really get to the point where we are no longer owning the software we play. If the company just shuts off servers or closes down you just won't be able to re-download titles any longer. I personally hope physical media sticks around, but the realist in me knows it will eventually die out. Heck even looking at things like movies I haven't bought a movie in a very long time because I just stream everything now, so not sure why I feel so differently about video games compared to streaming TV and movies.

@Morph But should try RDR2. It' s really fantastic!

@gortsi thats what I said

This figure didn't sound right and seemed contradictory (80% of revenues through digital but FIFA sells 75% on physical). But then it appears to be an estimate including mobile games.

I am slightly saddened by this figure :/
Selfishly I guess lol.

Mario Kart 8 DX retail sales are insane. Selling 35%+ more copies in Year 2 than in Year 1 is unprecedented. I'm sure Far Cry 5 and maybe Crash Trilogy would have sold more if digital sales were factored in, but the Mario Kart's numbers are still amazing.

Pokemon Let's Go and Smash Bros Ultimate also had very strong sales, especially for the latter as it was only available during the last 4 weeks of 2018. Neither game will have the same legs as Mario Kart (especially Let's Go since the new Gen 8 entry will launch this November) but both titles should continue to perform very well going into 2019, with Smash Bros Ultimate being on track to outpace Mario Odyssey.

@NotSoCryptic

Expecting a handheld to be a end all be all platform is ridiculous, though. Expecting big and technically demanding games on a machine I can almost fit into my back pocket with the joy cons detached isn't practical. If the Switch was able to run a game like The Witcher 3 at max settings like my PC can, the battery would die in like 5-10 minutes.

Also, you didn't really address my point that a lot of these big budget games some people are expecting are usually monetized up the wazoo past the initial MSRP. It's hard for me to be immersed or have fun in a game that I paid $60 for and has a cash shop, that created a problem it wants to sell you the solution for. (Assassin's Creed Odyssey and its ridiculous exp booster) These games seem to be focused on profit instead of delivering a great game the developers truly wanted to make, and some people defend it because "mah graphics".

Luckily most of these big AAA third party publishers are bleeding in stock value, so hopefully they get the message that consumers are getting tired of the disrespect and live service garbage.

The Switch has proven that a console doesn't need the most power available to have great games created for it. (Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart, Super Mario Odyssey, Some cool, etc.) Indie games have proven that with a great art style and a lot of heart, they can be critical darlings at 1/3rd or less the price of these big AAA games. (Shovel Knight, Yoku's Island Express, Hollow Knight, The Messenger, Undertale, Celeste, etc.)

I'm not saying that having more horsepower doesn't allow for developers to do more with games, but it isn't always used for things that are really important. Who asked for horse genitalia physics in RDR2? Who genuinely enjoys how tedious they made hunting, who thinks that tank controls for your player character in 2018 are enjoyable besides those who value immersion above all else? Did we really need a hunger meter in RDR2? Just make your game fun. That's what I look for most in games.

Lastly, don't tell me I'm not aware that stronger hardware allows for more development tools. There's a reason why I game on PC and not on PlayStation/Xbox these days, and that's precisely because I know that if I want the most out of a technically demanding game, I'll get it on PC. PS4/Xbox One are pretty outdated by this point, and their successors will be shortly after they launch. PC is the ideal place to play big budget games. That's not what I'm looking for on my Switch, and my Switch has seen the most playtime out of all my platforms since launch. It's now my go to place for indie games, which I play more than anything else, and I always look forward to the next stellar Nintendo title.

@Morph well my response was to your comment about cracking Europe. During the Wii generation Nintendo sold more than the competition even across Europe (the Wii itself sold 8.4 mil consoles in the UK alone, the PS4 is not even close to that number). They crack Europe when they sell something appealing even if it's not as prevalent as Japan or the US.

@electrolite77 Well if that's the case this number is just a manipulation of facts to suite the argument of a few. Probably the big publishers that want to save a few bucks on physical releases.

I wonder if things will end up blowing up on their face if they go full digital.

Assuming that most of the games on this list have a 25-35% digital attach ratio, this means that...
> COD BO4 sales have dropped by 30-35% compared to COD WWII
> BFV sales have dropped 60-65% compared to BF1 and 40-45% compared to Battlefront 2
> AC Odyssey sales have dropped 25-30% compared to AC Origins
> Fallout 76 sales have dropped 75-80% compared to Fallout 4

This isn't even mentioning titles like Darksiders 3 and Hitman 2 which have sold 80%+ less than their predecessors.

Looks like most games this holiday outside of FIFA, Red Dead Redemption 2, and the big exclusives (Spider-Man, Forza Horizon 4, Pokemon Let's Go, Smash Bros Ultimate) are struggling, if not flat out failing...cough cough Bethesda cough cough

@westman98

Yeah, and what's sad is that these publishers are still making bank. That's because you have people who are giving them tons of money in microtransactions, but these people are the minority and I think consumers are finally starting to get fed up with how AAA games are being designed nowadays: to get as much money outside of the initial purchase as possible.

Hopefully there's a big shake up or crash so publishers wake up.

@electrolite77 True NL should've made the distinction.

However I do think that should've been more than one throw away line in the other article, the way the industry as a whole seems to lump micro transactions as if they were a game is going to en up biting them back.

If, as some commenters have pointed out, this statistic includes mobile, PC, etc. rather than just console, then that 80% headline isn't quite as alarming as it first appears. In fact, it's pretty much what you'd expect.

I've been saying it for a while, but physical video games are on their way out. Don't be surprised if next gen consoles don't even have an option for physical games.

It says ‘revenue’ not ‘game sales’.

So does that include DLC, season passes, lootboxes, and paying for online?

Some serious misdirection of facts going on around this figure

Allow me to elaborate

This figured includes dlc , loot boxes and MOBILE . Sub services and other digital items

Not just digital games

nearly all AAA games are 75% physical or higher

Most large aaa titles saw a severe decrease yoy in both physical and digital totals
(Fallout , battlefield , hitman)

Physical game sales are the reason games sell MILLIONS red dead etc ,

The U.K. high street has seen a severe shift to online merchants like amazon and this had a knock on effect on the retail sector.

Brexit worries has effected consumer spending.

Blu-Ray and vinyl collecting has a large collector base (niche) considered a RICH vein , even now at lower than 30% of the market they are worth tens of billions in value and vinyl actually grew yoy

And finally comes what we call saturation , eventually even after the digital shift has moved you are left with a large percentage of collectors who demand physical, this is still worth billions. Nintendo and Sony will not abandon £££ unless it’s a necessity.

@Frenean
I'm at least glad publishers like Bethesda and EA are suffering after attempting to release half-finished (and in the case of Bethesda, borderline unplayable) products.

But as long as there are uneducated football fans who are willing to gamble their livelihoods away to FIFA Ultimate Team, microtransactions aren't leaving the gaming industry anytime soon.

@Morfidplays Thanks for the insight. I knew this didn't sound right. AAA games are rarely discounted much from the RRP in digital form and the last time I checked we weren't suddenly living in a nation of millionaires.

@Frenean may i ask what makes a game fun?

@Morph 40% of the games in the list are Switch games. That’s a lot.

@ritouf I wouldn't call them informative, but they certainly are interesting.

@electrolite77 That has already happened, those platforms are called Android and iOS... and they just so happen to be the most popular platforms on the entire planet by a good margin. Then there's PC's which are pretty much entirely digital by now. So much for your theory.

@diwdiws

I can't really tell you, that's subjective. All I know is that better graphics/engines don't automatically make a game good or fun.

@electrolite77 lol...the first thing I saw when I went to that link was.

“UK video games market is now 80% digital.
However, 75% of AAA game sales are physical”

Thank you, it was all I needed to see.

This article certainly is putting a peculiar slant on the statistics, and I'm not really sure why, unless the author is eager for physical media to be completely obsolete. A key phrase stood out for me: "digital film sales (which include streaming services like Netflix)". To my mind Netflix is not 'a sale' it is a rental. You don't own anything you stream on Netflix, and you lose access to it as soon as your subscription ends (for whatever reason) or the streaming service loses the rights to that particular title. A rental-only future for any entertainment form - games, music or movies - depresses the hell out of me, so I wish articles like this didn't go for the clickbait headlines as often as they seem to...

80% digital?! That's a lot higher than I would have expected. But to be fair, when you sell a digital game, you're saving on manufacturing cost entirely. The same game at the same price physical and digital will always be more profitable digitally because the cost of materials is 0.

@Frenean and a game with lesser graphics doesn’t make a game fun either?

@diwdiws

My point is that graphics shouldn't dictate how fun a game is at all, whether it's more or less fun. Games like Celeste prove that you don't have to have bleeding edge graphics to be a great, fun game.

@Frenean huh? You say graphics shouldt dictate how fun a game can be, which basically means there is no correlation between graphics and fun making your example of celeste meaningless since there is no correlation.

Basically celeste would still be a great fun game if it had bleeding edge graphics

@diwdiws

That's exactly my point. My whole argument is that gameplay and graphics are two completely separate entities, and good graphics don't contribute to a game having better gameplay. If the gameplay is fun, the game is fun. Red Dead Redemption 2 is in my opinion a game that focuses more on presentation and narrative than it does just being a fun game, and why it just doesn't really interest me all that much.

Again, this is all subjective. I firmly stand by my belief that a game doesn't need bleeding edge graphics to be fun. I get a lot more irritated when a game is very nice to look at but has mediocre gameplay than I do when a game has mediocre graphics but is fun to play.

I did knew it.

Oh, it seems this site doesn't always allow short comments. I cheered to soon!

@electrolite77 Well now you are just moving the goalpost.

Digital is accelerating. FIFA 18 was 20% digital and FIFA 19 is 25% digital. A shift is happening. But physical remains important.

One stat missing from this, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold more in 2018 than 2017

@electrolite77 Of course. The numbers would be meaningless otherwise.

@electrolite77,

In a past comment on another topic I praised the fact that you could place short comments again. But I seemed to be wrong: This site still doesn't allow short comments! Its bonkers!

Not everyone wants to place big comments all the time. And if this site's owners hate that: For every 5 short comments there are 1 or 2 HUGE comments. Some people love to type big walls of text!!