British newspaper The Daily Telegraph has uncovered that in the twelve-month period ending September 2009, the sale of video games has exceeded that of movies in the UK. The research was conducted by market-research organization GfK SE and found that in the United Kingdom, roughly £1.73 billion was spent on video games, equalling roughly $2.79 billion. In comparison, the organization also estimated that disc sales for movies equalled roughly £200 million ($322 million) while the box office created a revenue of approximately one billion GBP, or $1.61 billion.

Tom Watson, a British politician stated this was a clear sign that the industry has reached a mature stage, but added that “[l]ike anything digital, Parliament has a very narrow view of video games. Too many politicians think video games are played by teenage boys staying up all night shooting things in their bedroom, and yes there are plenty of those, but there also a huge range of people of many different ages who love playing games.”

Criticizing the way politicians often respond to gaming ‘controversies’ such as “the Airport Level” in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and the way video game-violence is generally portrayed by the media, he added “yes, let’s have a debate about unpleasant content in video games, but don’t beat up on the whole industry.”