In 1999, the profile of the French player boiled down essentially to a young boy. At that time, 20% of the general population played. Players were 21 years old on average, 80% of them men. This image still seems present today when we think of video games. But the figures reported by the Syndicat des Éditeurs et des Logiciels de Loisirs (SELL) testify to a real change over the last 20 years. Taking the previous figures, we could consider that the gamer profile no longer exists. Indeed, 58% of the population now say they play at least once a week. These players are 38 years old on average, with a male-female split of 53% and 47% respectively. Making a 38-year-old the “typical profile” of the player would really make little sense.
The evolution of these figures suggests a vast democratisation of video games in French society. Indeed, this pastime, once reserved for the young, no longer is. The argument that the young players of 1999 kept on playing is not enough to explain this change. In fact, 49% of those over 60 say they play video games, and 34% of them play every day or almost every day. This far from negligible figure shows that daily use is not due to teenagers alone, although it is correct to say that 90% of children play video games. Moreover, the solitary aspect is no longer the norm, particularly among children, since they mostly (59%) play with others, whether online or in person. This figure is also rising, which suggests that video gaming is becoming mainly a social pastime.
Within our neoliberal society, video games represent a significant and growing market share, since the video game industry was worth 5.31 billion euros in France in 2020, up 11.3% on 2019. Technological change is upending how we use games, and within a few years people will probably play as much online as offline. The arrival of the smartphone in the 2000s had its impact on the massive growth in the number of players, since it is one of the most widely used platforms. The popularisation of virtual reality headsets since 2016 may also become part of this picture. Even though the French public still seems reluctant to invest massively in this platform, Virtual Reality arcades are growing, as is their presence at video game fairs.
We leave readers the opportunity to look more closely at all the information in the SELL report of November 2021. These figures should be taken with a degree of caution, because other phenomena deserve to be taken into account in analysing these data, such as the question of the time allotted to this pastime, particularly among adults. Within these statistics, a player who spends every evening for hours (on Fortnite or League of Legends, for example) and a player who uses their smartphone during their bus ride to work have very different uses of, and relationships to, games, despite daily practice. The fact remains that the whole French population can now be a “video game player”, and that looking at this practice through the lens of childhood is no longer relevant. We will therefore need to sharpen our gaze to question in detail how games are used.
Romain Lang
https://www.sell.fr/lindustrie#5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=34&v=xgBk0RMO91Y&feature=emb_title
