“Zelda”, “Hogwarts Legacy” and “EA Sports FC”, video game sales champions in France in 2023

After a slight decline in 2022, video game turnover in France set a new record. In 2023, the country’s first cultural industry was born About 6.1 billion euros, an increase of 9.9% compared to the previous year, according to the annual report of the Union of Leisure Software Publishers (SELL), published on Wednesday 20 March.

“This remarkable performance has been achieved in an adverse macroeconomic context – Due to high inflation – Today establishes France as one of the most dynamic markets in Europe », estimates James Rebors, president of SELL. The craze has not abated after the booming years of 2020 and 2021 during which, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, The French have used video games a lot. But this good news also contrasts with a series of announcements of thousands of layoffs in the industry internationally.

In France, consoles are the driving force of the video game sector. The turnover of this niche market (games, consoles and accessories combined) is more than 3.1 billion euros, an increase of 24% compared to 2022. Only console sales have seen an increase. 72% increase in one year,

More than one billion euros in turnover. A surprising catch-up, although previous years were marked by a shortage of components that led to the absence of new generation consoles (Xbox series and PlayStation 5) from the shelves.

Mobile gaming apps are not experiencing a crisis either. They generated a cumulative turnover of around 1.5 billion euros, an increase of 4.8% compared to 2022. The PC video game ecosystem reached 1.4 billion euros but recorded a decline of 8.5% annually.

Stadium lawn or Hyrule grounds

For the tenth consecutive year, Electronic Arts Football Simulation, EA Sports FC 24 (Formerly known as FIFA), is the sales ranking champion in France, with nearly 1.5 million copies sold. It followsHogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy (1.1 million units), The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (over 970,000 units) and Super Mario Bros. wonder (over 750,000 units).

But the number of copies sold of these last two titles is underestimated. Because unlike its competitors, Japanese manufacturer Nintendo does not communicate dematerialized sales of its games. However, on consoles, games the whole Downloaded – ie those that are not extensions or scalable online games – represent 65% of sales (more than 1.1 billion euros in 2024).

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The distribution between physical and dematerialized sales, however, does not pose a calculation problem on PC: boxed games are a species that has almost disappeared, with 99% of titles sold for these machines being downloaded. Diablo IV

2023 sales in this sector move to the top of the ranking. Blizzard’s title sold 314,000 units, compared to more than 186,000. The Hogwarts Legacy145,000 for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III And for more than 115,000 Grand Theft Auto vwhich shows exceptional longevity ten years after its release.

The sale of “Baldur’s Gate III” was kept a secret

However, one title is conspicuous by its absence in this ranking: Baldur’s Gate III, from Larian Studios, which has won most of the Best Game of the Year 2023 awards on March 7 – the most recent being Pegasus for Best Foreign Game. The Belgian studio behind this phenomenally successful role-playing game, derived from the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game, has not disclosed its sales figures on the French territory. However, this did not prevent SELL from taking into account the turnover generated by its sales in France in its overall calculation.

For its part, it has no real sales leader in the mobile sector, with its free games model. Only the most downloaded game application is known: Monopoly Go In the lead, followed by Royal Match and Roblox. However, this ranking does not reflect the most lucrative games – publishers currently avoid communicating revenue from the microtransactions through which most smartphone titles are monetized.

In this avalanche of good news communicated by industry representatives, one weak performance is notable: subscription gaming (Microsoft Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, Nintendo Switch Online or Ubisoft Connect). Experiencing a significant drop of around 40% on consoles and PC. However, such subscriptions account for a very small share of the sector’s turnover as they represent only 1.6% or about 161 million euros. In video games, the fear of seeing the arrival of a subscription service with the equivalent power of Netflix in the audiovisual sector is not yet present.

Pierre Trouvey

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