Last Updated on May 30, 2023 by

Video games are often discredited in France: they would cut young people off from reality and incite them to violence, they would be a minor art compared to cinema, literature and performing arts… Can we deny that our fellow citizens spend more? , in value, in video games than in any other cultural good? As for the fun offer on mobile phones, it is so depreciated that digital art schools do not integrate it, or only a little, into their teaching. Can we ignore what constitutes the second video game market, and who is expected to take first place by the end of 2016?

 These discrepancies are all the most regrettable as France was a pioneer in the video game like afk arena tier list sector, in particular thanks to a company founded in 1986 by five Breton brothers, Ubisoft,which has risen among the world leaders… while largely leaving the national territory in order to take advantage, elsewhere, of environments more conducive to creation. It would take very little to relaunch a video game ecosystem in France.

 The few tracks that I will trace here come from my experience as leader of Playsoft, but in no way engage the National Video Game Syndicate (SNJV) of which I am also vice-president.

What is the console ecosystem?

It is still the market that pulls the ecosystem upwards with a turnover of more than 2.7 billion euros in 2020, an increase of 10% compared to 2019.

In detail, while console sales represent 25% of revenues (the rest being supplemented by revenue from accessories), it is video games that continue to grow and impose themselves on the first step of the podium with a volume representing more than 1.7 billion euros (+9.5%).

Proof of technological developments and practices, we see that dematerialized games as well as all expenses for related services (subscription, micro-transactions, etc.) take over the sale of physical games: 1.091 billion euros (+ 19.1%) vs 666 million euros (- 3.2%, a drop which also corresponds to the health crisis).

If the study does not detail exactly the same data from one year to the next, we can read that in 2013, physical software represented 60% of turnover, against 29% for dematerialized (taking into account PCs and consoles).

As for the number of consoles sold in 2014, one million generation 8 consoles such as Wii U, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo 3S, etc. had passed. In 2020, it will be more than 2.3 million copies, which is more less the same as in 2019.

To go further, in its 2016 report, SELL sheds additional light on the volume of living room consoles installed in homes by generation. There were nearly 15 million Gen 7s and over 5 million Gen 8s. Pretty much the same for handhelds. That is almost 10 million more machines than in 2013.

Developments in the mobile market

The mobile market grew by 16% compared to 2019 to reach 1.4 billion euros in turnover in 2020. At the end of 2018, it was 946 million euros, at the end 2017, 778 million euros, when, and this is where the dazzling breakthrough of mobile can be seen since, it only represented 190 million euros in revenue in 2013.

In the number of mobile downloads , 43% are games that follow applications. In its 2019 edition, smartphone gamers were 38 years old on average, which is much the same today.

How is the PC environment doing?

Unlike the other two ecosystems, PC Gaming is experiencing a slight drop in the number of its software sales. – 1.9% compared to 2019, i.e. a total turnover of 491 million euros, including 228 for MMO games and 137 for micro-transactions. L’Essentiel du jeu vidéo shows that in 2020, the PC market and the purchase of physical games lost 20.8%, to stand at 8 million units, against… 483 million games sold digitally ( down slightly by 1.5%).

However, the sector is doing well since, in general, the gaming ecosystem is growing by 8.9% (1.1 billion euros in turnover) thanks to hardware (44%, 516 million euros) and accessories. (15%) which pulls up the sector.

In recent years, the evolution of increasingly powerful computers and network games has led a number of players to equip themselves with suitable machines. For example, in 2016, PC sales revenue was 458 million. That is an increase of 58 million euros in 5 years.

Apart from this if you’re interested to know about GTA 5 Mods (To Make Your Game More Interesting) then please visit our Gaming category.