The better part of the last decade has seen digital media taking over entertainment industries- which, of course, includes video games as well. Year on year, we get reports and sales data that suggest that as physical sales for games continue to go down, digital sales keep on spiking- and that’s very much been the case in 2022. Almost to a startling degree, some might argue.
As per data shared by GamesIndustry (via Newzoo), 72% of all global console game sales in 2022 were digital, with only 28% accounting for physical game sales. On the PC front, meanwhile, the digital share is much larger, to little surprise, with 98% of all game sales on the platform in 2022 being digital purchases.
For all platforms put together, 94.2% of all worldwide game sales were digital, with only 5.8% accounting for physical sales. It’s worth noting, of course, that there are a number of publishers – like Nintendo – that don’t publicly share data for digital sales, and with that not being accounted for in these figures, the final numbers will likely vary at least slightly. Either way, one thing that remains clear is that digital media continues to grab a larger piece of the pie every year.
In total, global digital game revenue for 2022 stands at $172.8 billion, which is down 4% from last year. In comparison, global physical game revenue for the year stands at $10.7 billion, down 10.1% from 2021’s figures.
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