Étude sur l'industrie du jeu vidéo en France: Tissu économique et compétitivité

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
The core French industry counted 575 active companies in 2018, with 86% of them development studios.See it on page 6
02
Studio revenue grew 117% between 2010 and 2018, reaching about 830 million euros, while publisher revenue grew 56% to about 3.1 billion euros.See it on page 7
03
Ninety percent of the studios surveyed used external financing for at least one production, and only 10% fully self-financed their games.See it on page 14
04
Of the studios surveyed, 97% said the CIJV and FAJV had a positive impact on their activity.See it on page 18
05
France has only one public school dedicated to video games, whereas Germany has 63 public video game schools.See it on page 10
06
In 2018 France accounted for about 5% of the value of global video game sales, roughly 5 billion euros out of an estimated 95 billion euros.See it on page 9

Summary

A 2021 study by the French Ministry of Economy's DGE, prepared by the consultancy PwC France from information available as of 6 October 2020, examines the French video game industry: its economic fabric, training, innovation and business models, financing, and international competitiveness. It is based on data from before the health crisis, which it does not account for. In 2018, the core industry (studios, publishers and distributors) comprised 575 active companies, 86% of them development studios, and about 960 structures including the wider ecosystem. Studio revenue rose from about 380 million euros in 2010 to 830 million in 2018, while publisher revenue rose from about 2.0 billion to 3.1 billion euros. Employment in the sector was about 11,900 in 2018, growing at 9% a year since 2010. The study notes that most French studios (90% of those interviewed) use external financing for at least one production, and that the video game tax credit (CIJV) and the FAJV aid fund are the most commonly used public schemes. The authors describe France as having a strong training system, but one with only one public video game school. France is compared with Canada, Finland and the United Kingdom as its main competitors, though the document does not rank them against France.