Market strengths and trends

Market Strengths and Trends

The UK is a unique market for the games industry. Straddling both the USA and the wider European markets, it also provides fast-track access to the Middle East and Asia and has become the top inward-investment destination for companies outside of Europe.

For early stage or new technology and content players, the UK is an essential first market due to its early-adopter environment. Companies can test their new applications and games in the UK's well developed and high-spending economy.

Mirroring global trends, the core drivers of the UK digital games market are:

• Multiplicity of cheaper, more intelligent smartphones and tablets entering the market
• Continued growth of social media
• Increased access to high-speed internet
• The global games video market is developing new revenue streams from video on demand including of live gaming events, advertising, sponsorship, subscriptions and donations.
• Development of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Big Data, artificial intelligence, and genres such as Esports
• Increase in the amount of leisure time enjoyed by consumers
• Cloud computing and data centres. The UK is one of the strongest markets in the world for cloud computing and data centre companies.
• Marketing excellence: A key challenge for digital games businesses is the ability to market their products. Games companies in the UK are increasingly expanding or opening offices in London to be close to the myriad marketing, search and advertising industry players that can help their games rise above the pack
• Access to multiple and innovative funding sources
• Growth in exports and inward investment. Companies that have invested in the UK games sector include Warner Bros. The UK also hosts the European headquarters for a large number of overseas games companies including Microsoft, Sony, Konami and Take-Two.

More information on games industry trends at http://ukie.org.uk/research#fact_sheet