Illustration of a video game.

-

Pixabay

Turnover up 11.3%, commitment time of up to 9 hours per week ... The French video game market experienced a record year in 2020, driven in particular by the confinement effect, next gen consoles and star titles like

FIFA 21

and

Animal Crossing

.

After experiencing a slight decline last year (-2.7%), total sales of hardware, PCs and consoles, games - including mobile - and accessories reached sales in 2020. of 5.3 billion euros, announced the Syndicate of software publishers (SELL) in its annual report published on Wednesday.

"We played more, so we spent more"

The French have by far spent more on consoles and games than in books, a market that weighed nearly 4 billion euros in 2020. “The Covid-19 has had an impact on French playing time and the expenses involved. We played more, so we spent more, ”explains SELL president Julie Chalmette.

In a health context where leisure activities were few, video games remained accessible to the greatest number.

During the first confinement in March, the weekly playing time for example increased by 1h20 to largely exceed 9 hours per week.

“The video game has fulfilled its role of entertainment, leisure, and escape.

This was an opportunity for a number of people to discover, or rediscover, that video games could have a positive role, in particular by allowing people to maintain a social bond and to go through this crisis in a more positive way. positive, ”observes Julie Chalmette.

Consoles in force

With 2.7 billion euros in 2020, the turnover generated by the ecosystem of consoles increased by 10% over one year.

It still represents more than half (51%) of the total market.

The revenues generated by sales of consoles alone increased by 11%, mainly due to the success of the Nintendo Switch and the arrival on the market of the new generation of Sony and Microsoft consoles, with high performance. increased since the end of the year.

On sales of games, which represent 1.76 billion euros in revenue, the dematerialized has had a good year with growth of 19.1% in one year, under the effect of the health crisis.

Unlike physical sales, which fell by 3.2%, while many specialty stores were closed.

“FIFA” at the top of sales since 2013

Among the most popular games, it is (again) FIFA 21 which sold the best in 2020 with 1.324 million copies sold, all platforms combined (excluding Nintendo dematerialized sales data).

EA's football simulation, used to occupying the top of the rankings since 2013, is ahead of

Animal Crossing

: New Horizons

(1.08 million), a title that was very popular during the first confinement.

Up 16%, the mobile market also reached a historic level in 2020, reaching 1.43 billion euros.

It is ahead of the PC ecosystem in revenue, which generated 1.18 billion euros (+ 8.9%) over the year.

In the mobile segment, neither physical sales, nor accessories, nor specific still marginal equipment: all income comes from dematerialized sales and

in-game

microdepenses

.

If the Finnish studio Supercell (

Clash of Clans, Brawl Stars

), owned by the Chinese digital giant Tencent, dominates the ranking of downloads, it is the French publisher Voodoo (

Helix Jump, Crowd City

) which is at the top of the ranking spending.

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