Our top three market highlights: the gaming industry, music investment and travel

Here's a summary of our top three market articles for March 2021:

Lockdown boredom drives the UK video games market to a £7bn record high

During 2020 the UK video games market has been fuelled by an unprecedented boom in the popularity of mobile games, consoles and VR headsets. This soaring demand can largely be placed with the increased need for at home entertainment during the pandemic. The result was a huge £1.9bn increase on money spent on gaming entertainment compared to 2019’s figure. This boom in demand for entertainment has also prompted gamers exploring new technologies, such as VR.

Meet music’s most hated man—and he is the industry’s top dealmaker

In recent months, huge waves have been caused within the music and IP rights industry. Most music fans have never heard the name Merck Mercuriadis, CEO of Hipgnosis Songs Fund. But they may well be aware of the assets he’s been aggressively buying up for the past three years. In just three years he has spent $1.8billion of investor funds buying the rights 60,000 songs. That includes thousands of songs, including some penned by veterans like Neil Young and Barry Manilow and others from newer artists like Ed Sheeran and Shakira.

A year on from the first lockdown, what has become of travel?

As lockdown restrictions are lifted and the roadmap out of the pandemic starts to take shape, people can begin to contemplate what holidays might look like in 2021. This article explores emerging trends around staycations and the growth of the UK adventure holidays. In tandem, the article also interrogates if cities will avoid over-tourism, if travellers will utilise electric travel to avoid airports and what people want from a post-pandemic holiday.  

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