One of the businesses that has benefitted from the Coronavirus Pandemic and lockdowns has been the video games industry.

It has been estimated that it was worth £7bn last year, 2020, a record high for the industry.

Apart from the games themselves, which recorded a 30% increase in sales compared with 2019, the demand for mobile games, consoles and virtual reality headsets has rocketed.

Nintendo’s Switch, PlayStation and Xbox hardware were all winners. Total spend on all games hardware rose 61% to £2.26bn.

“The figures confirm just how valuable games proved to people across the country during one of the toughest years of our lives,” said Dr Jo Twist, the chief executive of UK games industry body Ukie, which puts out the annual figures. “We all know how important entertainment, technology and creativity have been over the last year.”

Among the most popular games of the last year were Call of Duty, and Nintendo’s Animal Crossing.

According to the Guardian “The UK video games industry is the biggest in Europe, and the fifth biggest in the world, behind the gaming juggernauts Japan, South Korea, China and the US.”