European Game Sales Decline by 1.9% in First Half of 2024

Compared to other places across the world, European game sales suffered the least. The UK experienced a decline of 30% in the first half of 2024, whereas European game sales only experienced a decrease of 1.9% in the first half of 2024.

According to a Games Sales Data report, 80 million games were sold across Europe in the first half of 2024 on PC and console. Compared to other parts of the world, this is a solid start to the year for Europe, as there weren't many hard-hitting games released in the first half of the year compared to 2023. For example, the first half of 2023 saw games such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, and Diablo IV be released and be hugely successful right out of the gate.

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Only two of the top ten best-selling games of 2024 were released this year: Helldivers 2 and The Last of Us: Part 2 Remastered. Compared to other big releases, these games had a lower selling price than other AAA games released in recent years, which has helped contribute to the boost in sales.

Looking at European game sales in June at a glance, 11.3 million video games were sold in the last month, which is a drop of 19% from June 2023. June 2023 saw some big releases, such as Diablo IV and Final Fantasy 16, which helped elevate sales massively. However, June 2024 did not see a big AAA game come through this month, which has led to a decline in sales.

The one huge positive for this half of the year was the release of the Elden Ring DLC. Looking at month-on-month data, sales shot up by 454% for the base game of Elden Ring alone. For the highest charted game of this half of the year, it goes to Luigi's Mansion 2 HD. However, only physical sales for this game were counted, with no data on how many digital sales the game received.

Luigi's Mansion 2 HD was nearly the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch game this year, but it narrowly avoided the