MARCH 2021 ESSENTIAL VIDEO GAME NEWS FRENCH MARKET REPORT 2020 MARCH 2021 ESSENTIAL VIDEO GAME NEWS CHAPTER 1 THE FRENCH VIDEO GAME MARKET 08 CHAPTER 2 PROFILES OF FRENCH VIDEO GAME PLAYERS 44 CHAPTER 3 TYPOLOGY OF VIDEO GAME PLAYERS 50 CHAPTER 4 A RESPONSIBLE INDUSTRY 58 CHAPTER 5 SELL 68 Essential Video Game News is produced by the Union of Video Game Publishers “SELL". It reflects the market, consumption and use of the French video gaming industry. A WORD FROM THE CHAIRWOMAN 020 will stand as The video game industry continues to play an essential a unique year for role for technological, cultural and creative industries. 2our sector. Firstly The innovations experienced first by video game - and independently of players are often generalised through video gaming the health crisis we have before transitioning to other sectors and industries. experienced - this year Video gaming is a "laboratory” of innovations where was always going to be creative freedom has no boundaries. exceptional. The release of two new consoles in 2020 was essential for the video game industry’s the same year, the rise ambition for recognition. It is now established as a of cloud video games and the many new software media in its own right, offering many opportunities innovations predicted an extremely dynamic year. beyond its primary function as entertainment. And then the epidemic arrived with its impact on this particular situation. For many French people in lockdown, video gaming was a lifeline that entertained The release of two new them and helped them chat, share and escape a very consoles in the same gloomy reality. More than ever in 2020, video gaming revealed its eminently social characteristics. year, the rise of cloud In 2020, the video game industry posted its best video games and the performance, achieving historic sales of 5.3 billion many new software euros. This growth of +11.3% demonstrates a high A WORD increase in the engagement of all players. In total, innovations predicted an 27.5 million games, 2.3 million consoles and 7 million extremely dynamic year. accessories were sold over the year. All ecosystems are posting growth: the Console As you know, the cancellation of Paris Games Week FROM THE ecosystem grew by +10% and represents 51% total was a difficult but necessary decision. We do not yet video game market share, PC video games by +9% know what this year has in store, but we are already and Mobile video games by +16%. working on putting on an exceptional edition for the show’s faithful audience, as soon as the situation For games sales, video games experienced a record allows. Video game players tell us every day how year: sales of complete video games for consoles much they are looking forward to this event as do all CHAIRWOMAN saw +79% growth in one year. Sales of physical those involved in this exciting adventure. games showed quite remarkable resistance with a Once again this year, the video game industry will be moderate fall of -3.2% despite a difficult context for there, going above and beyond this difficult situation physical distribution. Console software turnover is still to continue entertaining and delivering dreams to dominated by physical game sales which represent even more video game players. 38% in value. 36% of this value is generated by digital game sales and 15% by additional downloadable Take care, content and micro-transactions. Julie Chalmette 4 5 METHODOLOGY METHODOLOGY video game players, their buying behaviour PANELS AND METHODOLOGY across all platforms, helping to generate an in- ESTIMATIONS FOR 2020 TURNOVER ARE THE RESULT OF COLLABORATION BETWEEN depth view of their gameplay habits and uses. THREE ORGANISATIONS PROVIDING SELL THEIR DATA, FOR A PRECISE ANALYSIS The countries covered are France, the UK, OF THE SECTOR’S ACTIVITY. Germany and Spain and also the United States and Russia. GameTrack supports the GSD GSD: for the physical market GSD and GameTrack: for the digital market project by providing a more global vision of the App Annie and GameTrack: for the mobile market markets in which it operates. METHODOLOGY: – Retail panel: the data on video game sales METHODOLOGY: is sent by distributors from each country on GameTrack data is collated quarterly from two a weekly basis. The data is standardised, surveys: combined, anonymised and extrapolated to recreate the entire market. To guarantee a - An offline survey carried out annually on a reliable and standardised product database, the sample 1,000 people aged 15 and over. It is information on catalogues is directly supplied used to balance answers from a more detailed online survey. by the publishers. In parallel, the publishers ABOUT GAMETRACK provide data to hone the extrapolation GameTrack is an additional project set up in - An online survey, carried out monthly with a calculation models to offer a sharper vision of 2011, built around a consumer panel operated by sample of (the same) 3,000 people per quarter, markets that are not completely covered by the Ipsos for the ISFE. GameTrack data comes from aged 6 to 64. retail panel. monthly survey data published quarterly. The data analyses the demographics of European – Digital panel: digital data sales cover complete game sales on the PlayStation Network (PSN), ABOUT GSD Xbox Live (XBL), Nintendo eShop (third-party (GAME SALES DATA) publishers) and PC sales networks. The sales figures are sent each week directly by the video Launched in 2013, the GSD project is the game publishers taking part in the project and result of a European project run by the ISFE therefore do not require any extrapolation. GSD (Interactive Software Federation of Europe) is the only data source for game downloads with around a hundred partners, with the aim of based on real sales. unifying data collection from different territories and regrouping this data (physical or digital) within one tool available to trade associations, ABOUT APP ANNIE distributors and video game publishers App Annie analyses data from app stores participating in the panel. The retail panel has (scores, rankings, comments, etc.) and been launched in 25 European countries. The combined, anonymised transactional data GSD digital panel today covers 50 countries in from over a million applications. With this data, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. App Annie produces estimations about app The panel is operated by Sparkers. download and revenue performance. 6 7 CHAPTER 1 FRENCHTHE VIDEO GAME MARKET THE FRENCH VIDEO GAME MARKET THE FRENCH VIDEO GAME MARKET 2020 MARKET REPORT SALES TOTAL SALES AND MARKET SHARE BY ECOSYSTEM* *TOTAL CONSOLE MOBILE PC MARKET ECOSYSTEM** ECOSYSTEM*** ECOSYSTEM** 2.707 1.426 1.182 5.3 +11.3% BILLION EUROS BILLION EUROS BILLION EUROS BILLION VS 2019 EUROS GROWTH IN MARKET SALES IN MILLION EUROS 5,315 4,951 51% 4,776** 4,303 3,645 27% 22% 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Sources: SELL data, from GSD/GameTrack/App Annie panels at end 2020. *Ecosystems: Console + PC + mobile, physical and digital. 10 *Ecosystems: Console + PC + mobile, physical and digital. **Sources: SELL data, from GSD/GameTrack panels at end 2020. 11 ** Data revised in 2020. *** Source: GameTrack estimations using user spending data from App Annie 2020, converted into euros and including French taxes. THE FRENCH VIDEO GAME MARKET THE FRENCH VIDEO GAME MARKET GROWTH MARKET SEGMENTS IN SALES BREAKDOWN BY ECOSYSTEM* OF SALES* IN MILLION EUROS CONSOLE PC MOBILE ECOSYSTEM** ECOSYSTEM** ECOSYSTEM*** 2,249 2,105 +10% +9% +16% VS 2019 1,426 GROWTH IN ECOSYSTEM SALES IN MILLION EUROS 1,195 1,231 1,042 2,749 2,707 +7% 2,459 2,401 +16% +15% 445 398 1,946 1,426 +12% 1,237 1,231 1,124 1,061 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 1,182 778 1,086 965 SOFTWARE HARDWARE ACCESSORIES MOBILE*** 638 PC PC PC + CONSOLE** + CONSOLE** + CONSOLE** 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 *Ecosystems: Console + PC + mobile, physical and digital. *Ecosystems: Console + PC + mobile, physical and digital. **Sources: SELL data, from GSD/GameTrack panels at end 2020. **Sources: SELL data, from GSD/GameTrack panels at end 2020. 12 *** Source: GameTrack estimations using user spending data from App Annie 2020, converted into euros and including French taxes. *** Source: GameTrack estimations using user spending data from App Annie 2020, converted into euros and including French taxes. 13 THE FRENCH VIDEO GAME MARKET THE FRENCH VIDEO GAME MARKET CLOSE-UP ON SEGMENTS: CLOSE-UP ON SOFTWARE MARKET SHARE BREAKDOWN OF SALES* PC 0.2% ECOSYSTEM % Physical 3 PC software PC CONSOLE % accessories ECOSYSTEM 48% 9 CONSOLE Digital % SOFTWARE PC software 27 Mobile BY PLATFORM 39% % software MOBILE 10 SOFTWARE PC hardware 13% PC SOFTWARE 5% Console accessories 5.3 BILLION 43% EUROS* DIGITAL (PC + CONSOLE) % 13 % BY FORMAT** Console 39% hardware 21 MOBILE Digital console software 18% PHYSICAL 13% (PC + CONSOLE) Physical console software CONSOLE ECOSYSTEM 14 *SELL data, from GSD, GameTrack, App Annie Intelligence panels at end 2020. *SELL data, from GSD, GameTrack, App Annie Intelligence panels at end 2020. 15 ** Physical = complete physical games. Digital = complete video games + additional content (DLC, season passes, micro-transactions, subscriptions and services) THE FRENCH VIDEO GAME MARKET THE FRENCH VIDEO GAME MARKET CONSOLE CONSOLE ECOSYSTEM ECOSYSTEM BREAKDOWN OF 2020 SALES IN EUROS GROWTH AND BREAKDOWN OF 2020 SALES IN EUROS SOFTWARE % 65 +9.5% 1,757 million Physical + digital software VS 2019 38% 36% 666 million 625 million physical games Complete video games 1,757 2,707 MILLION MILLION % % % +9.5 % 3 VS 2019 10 51 million 270 million 10 on-demand Accessories VS 2019 services % % 15 9 257 million +11.3% 158 million DLC Subscriptions Micro-transactions VS 2019 PHYSICAL DIGITAL % % % 25 +11% 38 62 679 million 666 million 1,091 million Hardware VS 2019 -3.2% +19.1% VS 2019 VS 2019 16 Sources: SELL data, from GSD/GameTrack panels at end 2020.