Game Industry Case Study: Labour Market & Diversity
This week, we conducted a case study in class on the UK Games Market. I researched into different areas on the games market, which markets are the most popular within the UK as well as things like different skills and requirements for certain job roles within the market. We also discussed diversity in the games industry - Why it is important and examples of it and how we can import them into our own games and work too.
UK Games Market: Popularity and Demand
The Gaming Industry in the UK is currently the biggest within the entirety of Europe. As well as this, The UK is currently the third largest source of video games in the world.
A few examples of notable video games created in the UK consist of titles such as Grand Theft Auto, Little Big Planet, Tomb Raider and Burnout Paradise - each of these games has a unique and dedicated fanbase, and are all greatly popular all across the world. A greater example of this is Grand theft Auto, which is one of the most popular games in the world (statistics of 2024.) selling approximately over 210 million copies worldwide.
In a poll documenting the most popular types of games within the UK consumer base conducted by Statista, revealed that action and action adventure games were among the most popular genres of games, sitting at 38% and 33% of the polls overall percentage. Similar results were also documented in a poll documenting the player base of different game genres recorded by site My Turbridge Wells in 2024. Action adventure games consist of those such as Red Dead Redemption, Assassins Creed, Tomb Raider and many other notable titles. As well as these results, Statista also recorded the best selling video games of 2023 based upon their total amount of sales. The most popular games with 2.3 million sales and 1.2 million sales respectively were EA Sports 24 and Call of Duty.
In the Uk Gaming Industry, it was documented to of produced approximately £7.82 billion pounds just within 2023, which showed to be a 4% increase from sales and revenue within the year prior. It is predicted the gaming industry within the Uk will only continue to grow, and is expected to produce a profit of 8 billion pounds by the year 2027.
UK Games Market: Salaries, Roles and Requirements
Within the Games Industry, there is a huge variety of different roles and responsibilities which each specialise in different areas. Each of these unique roles take on different tasks, work differently and subsequently earn different salaries. A few examples of different roles within the industry could consist of: a 3D Modelling Artist, UI Artists, Game Publishers and Producers, Animators, Concept Artists, VFX Artists and so many more. There is a huge variety of different skill sets and jobs within the industry that each specialise in different tasks, but many skills can Transcend just their specific role and can be transferable to other areas. Roles such as concept artists will specialise in creating assets and characters, drafting up many designs, and presenting different ideas as well as be tasked with creating things like finalised references and designs for certain assets. These could then be passed onto someone such as a 3D Modeller, who will be tasked with taking concepts and orthographics and creating them into 3D modelled versions. When that is complete, the model would be passed onto a Rigger, who will rig up the model ready to be animated by an Animator. Within the industry, mainly jobs feed into one another and all work together to produce a final product. They each have their individual roles which they specialise in which can be used and referenced by other roles, helping each other to work.
As well as the work variety, things such as salaries vary too dependant on different jobs. For example, a Game Producer in the UK is estimated to make a salary of around £33,500 per year, where as a concept artist can vary between approximately £20,000 to £37,000 a year depending on roles and locations. These salaries can also vary based upon different skillset's, companies and specific jobs too.
In the industry, skillsets and previous work experience is heavily important. When starting out, work may be much more difficult to obtain especially in more complex and higher paying roles. Many workers in the Games industry start out with entry level or junior level jobs, where their workload may be much smaller and pay less, but they will gradually work up their skills and experience over years as they work their way up a company. An example of this could be an entry level asset artist, after working for a company for a long time could be promoted to a character artist, and then further onwards to become a lead character artist and in charge of the department. Skillsets for these types of roles usually consist of good understanding of multiple different industry standard programs such as Blender, Maya, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as portfolio of works and examples of what they are capable of.
Uk Game Market: Diversity in Games
The UK Gaming Industry consists of people of all walks of life, however it is mostly made up of a cis-male base. Despite this, over the more recent years a rise in a more diverse variety of people of all races, genders, and sexualities have become much more represented within the industry. In terms of gender basis, the UK Industry is made up of predominantly people who identify as male, followed by 28% of those who identify as female, and 2% of people who identify as non-binary or other labels. The majority of those who work within the industry identify as either cis or straight and are not apart of the LGBT community, while only 21% of those who work in games identify as a part of the community. As well as this, only 10% of people working within the industry are black, Asian or of an ethnic minority. This information is supported by a reason census conducted by ukie.org.
In terms of gaming player base, A record from Statista declares that of June 2024 the split is approximately 47% female and 53% male. This statistic has began to equal out after the last few years, showing in 2017 that the female player base was significantly smaller.
Not only within the industry, but also within gaming content itself, - variety and diversity is incredibly important, especially in more recent times. Having a diverse cast of characters and people from all walks of life not only helps games to feel more realistic, but it also allows players to connect and relate to characters within games. This goes for things such as a player relating to a character who they share a sexuality with, and can relate to on a more personal level. This is especially evident in games that go into depths discussing characters stories and complexities. This can be seen in games such as Life is Strange, which touches on different mental illnesses and the experiences of someone with them, sexualities and struggles etc. These deep and personal stories allows players to more easily relate and connect with games.
References:
Anon, Preferred video game genre in the UK 2024 [online]. Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/forecasts/997858/preferred-video-game-genre-in-the-uk [Accessed 16 May 2025 a].
Anon, UK top games by unit sales 2023 [online]. Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/274072/most-popular-games-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-by-unit-sales/ [Accessed 16 May 2025 b].
Anon, Video game market in the United Kingdom - Statistics & Facts [online]. Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/topics/1763/gaming-in-the-united-kingdom/ [Accessed 16 May 2025 c].
Anon, Video gamers in the United Kingdom 2024, by gender [online]. Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/forecasts/461273/digital-games-users-age-gender-digital-market-outlook-uk [Accessed 16 May 2025 d].
Anon, Glassdoor.co.uk. Available at: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/concept-artist-salary-SRCH_KO0,14.htm [Accessed 16 May 2025 e].
Anon, Glassdoor.co.uk. Available at: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/game-producer-salary-SRCH_KO0,13.htm [Accessed 16 May 2025 f].
Anon, Org.uk. Available at: https://ukie.org.uk/UK-games-industry-census-2020 [Accessed 16 May 2025 g].
ScreenSkills, Careers in games [online]. ScreenSkills. Available at: https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/games/ [Accessed 16 May 2025].
Wells, M.T., 2025. Most popular game genres in the UK [online]. Mytunbridgewells.com. Available at: https://mytunbridgewells.com/popular-game-genres-uk/ [Accessed 16 May 2025].
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