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SELL: lots of data about the French video-game market in 2014

L~A

Member
So, SELL (basically, the French ESRB) put up their report about the French VG market for 2014. It's only in French for now, but I'll try translating everything where needed.

NB: consoles = home and handhelds consoles.

sanstitre0olum.png

1) 53% of people claim they're gamers.
2) In average, the age of players is 35yo.
3) Male: 51% / Female: 49%


In 2014: 2.7 billion euros for hardware, software, accessories, online and mobile. 1.9 billion just for physical (+1%). Only "physical market" (aka. physical goods) for cultural goods on the rise (vs books, movies).


Hardware: 29%
Console accessories: 10%
Software (physical): 31%
Software (digital): 9%
Software PC (physical): 2%
Software PC (digital): 11%
Software mobile: 8%

Software: 55% physical, 32% digital (consoles + handhelds + PC), 13% mobile.
Software: 66% consoles, 21% PC, 13% mobile.



(Left) Logiciel consoles = software for consoles / Blue: home console / Green: handhelds.

(Right) Accessories: 270m euros (+4%)

1) controllers (86m €) [+16.3% units, +24.7% value]
2) pre-paid cards (56m €) [+45.2% units, 46.8% value]
3) audio accessories (headsets, etc...) (42m €)
4) VG toys (35m €)
5) chargers (13m €)


(Left) Most popular genres.

1) Action/Adventure
2) FPS
3) Sports
4) RPG/Adventure
5) Racing
6) New genres
7) Simulation / War Games
8) Platform
9) Fighting
10) Party game
11) Simulation (aka: Farm Simulator)
12) MMO

(Right) Left chart: units / Right chart: value.


Publishers ranking:


Some additional data:


53% of the population play games regularly
75% of the population play games occasionally
Age (average): 37yo for men, 33yo for women

Among players:
21% play almost everyday
28% play regularly (at least 2 per week)
22% play occasionally (2-3 times/month)
29% play very occasionally (2-3 times/year)

60% generally play offline
23% generally play online
17% both

78% of people think VG is a great hobby for the family
70% of people think VG is a new form of culture
61% of people thing VG is a positive thing/activity.

Source
 
Dat Tomodachi Life love.

actually i don't dislike those charts. at least it seems that french people have better tastes than the british
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Hmm, I think the age average might explain (in addition to the love for Japanese things) the good Nintendo show in France.
 
Man Microsoft has zero entries in either top 10 and tomodachi Life is 3rd in units?
Crazy! But I love it! :D

That's not all that uncommon when you see European charts outside of the UK. In Germany's Top 100 for 2014 the first Xbox entry was FIFA 2015 for the 360 at 25. The first Xbox One entry came in at 55, that was also FIFA 2015.
 
French 2015 market: 2.7 billion euros -> $3.05 billion
UK 2015 market (software only) : 2.5 billion pounds -> $3.80 billion

Don't think we have data for Germany yet.
 
I'm actually quite shocked by how small the mobile market is in France. It's quite of sync, right?
Problem with this is the same as with digital.
Everything that is not a physical product their is no official tracking for it.

All estimates and some "real information" but mostly not.

Until their is a official source for digital all digital sales info are estimates.
 

Oregano

Member
Problem with this is the same as with digital.
Everything that is not a physical product their is no official tracking for it.

All estimates and some "real information" but mostly not.

Until their is a official source for digital all digital sales info are estimates.

That's very true. It could be way off. You would think it would be in Publishers interest to get reliable and accurate info on this stuff, of course they can just ask Apple/Google/Amazon.
 

SgtCobra

Member
Yep, nothing beat FIFA, ever.
You're pretty much spot on with that statement. the casual appeal of FIFA may never die. Unlike CoD the general public only cares about team/player updates, (small) new features/additions here and there and a slight boost of graphics/presentation if possible.
 
That's very true. It could be way off. You would think it would be in Publishers interest to get reliable and accurate info on this stuff, of course they can just ask Apple/Google/Amazon.
Apple google and amazon see this as propitiatory information + it belongs mostly to all the devs and publishers that own the ip.
Their have no value in telling how much games are selling on the service.
 

Oregano

Member
Apple google and amazon see this as propitiatory information + it belongs mostly to all the devs and publishers that own the ip.
Their have no value in telling how much games are selling on the service.

Would they not even be given trends and stuff(like genres?). I wouldn't expect individual titles breakdowns for other publisher's games.
 

Alcachofa

Neo Member
Thanks L~A ^^

As pointed out by undropdanslamare last december, some figures should be taken with a grain of salt, especially these :

Age (average): 37yo for men, 33yo for women
-> kids between 6 and 9 are not factored in
 
Would they not even be given trends and stuff(like genres?). I wouldn't expect individual titles breakdowns for other publisher's games.
Nope.

Only maybe at the end of the year like:
TOP best selling games of 2015 without any numbers or 1 - 10 ranking just that these games are best selling like you have on itunes right now.
Not real information except you see how popular some games are.

And sometimes you have someone who talks to http://www.gamasutra.com/ about how indies are doing or gameindustry.biz
But not really anything more than that sadly.

We live in a billions of $/Euro etc industry that runs on no public numbers and the more digital we go the more we have 0 idea how games are doing.
We basically are moving forward 100% blind on how the industry is doing going further.
 

L~A

Member
Indeed, that's a real shame. That's the main reason why NPD has become a real joke for me.

No precise data for anything, not console ranking anymore... yeah, I don't like how secretive they are. And the move toward digital only makes it worse.
 

Shengar

Member
Indeed, that's a real shame. That's the main reason why NPD has become a real joke for me.

No precise data for anything, not console ranking anymore... yeah, I don't like how secretive they are. And the move toward digital only makes it worse.

I guess there is no obligation for NPD to disclosed their data to the public as part of public responsibility? But considering on how many of their customer (platform holder) rarely disclosed specific numbers of their respective sales, I guess that's what they aiming for: secrecy.
 

Oregano

Member
Nope.

Only maybe at the end of the year like:
TOP best selling games of 2015 without any numbers or 1 - 10 ranking just that these games are best selling like you have on itunes right now.
Not real information except you see how popular some games are.

And sometimes you have someone who talks to http://www.gamasutra.com/ about how indies are doing or gameindustry.biz
But not really anything more than that sadly.

We live in a billions of $/Euro etc industry that runs on no public numbers and the more digital we go the more we have 0 idea how games are doing.
We basically are moving forward 100% blind on how the industry is doing going further.

Wow that's kinda messed up if important info isn't available on even a private basis. Publishers are kinda going in blind.
 

Alo0oy

Banned
Nope.

Only maybe at the end of the year like:
TOP best selling games of 2015 without any numbers or 1 - 10 ranking just that these games are best selling like you have on itunes right now.
Not real information except you see how popular some games are.

And sometimes you have someone who talks to http://www.gamasutra.com/ about how indies are doing or gameindustry.biz
But not really anything more than that sadly.

We live in a billions of $/Euro etc industry that runs on no public numbers and the more digital we go the more we have 0 idea how games are doing.
We basically are moving forward 100% blind on how the industry is doing going further.

Those are estimates though, & I would imagine the margin of error is not higher than 5%, maybe mobile is bigger (or smaller) than those estimates, but they're probably not far off either.
 
Those are estimates though, & I would imagine the margin of error is not higher than 5%, maybe mobile is bigger (or smaller) than those estimates, but they're probably not far off either.
How can you "accurately" estimate numbers that don't exits.
Take a place like steam that has 100 million active users a month.

Unless a indie tells you how much a game is doing.
You will never know how a market of 100 Million is doing EVER.
Valve is not telling and most pubs are also not telling.

Also if a million folks are playing Angry Birds on the train to work everyday in Paris how could you estimate that?
Do a survey?

The only thing you can do with that is asking IF people are playing games on mobile and not much more.
 

Fularu

Banned
A video for all French readers here (sorry no sub) that breaks down some data of the report, but I'm sure you have already watched it (by UnDropDansLaMare).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zTXhUKj7zM

EDIT : basically some data are misleading.

He makes several statistical and understanding mistakes in that video and tried his best to downplay the numbers presented. SELL's methodology is more or less the same as the ones applied prety much everywhere, for every market.
 

Alo0oy

Banned
How can you "accurately" estimate numbers that don't exits.
Take a place like steam that has 100 million active users a month.

Unless a indie tells you how much a game is doing.
You will never know how a market of 100 Million is doing EVER.
Valve is not telling and most pubs are also not telling.

Also if a million folks are playing Angry Birds on the train to work everyday in Paris how could you estimate that?
Do a survey?

The only thing you can do with that is asking IF people are playing games on mobile and not much more.

The same way surveys estimate demographics & TV stations estimate ratings, they're not 100% accurate, but those companies usually use sophisticated methods to arrive at those estimates.

EDIT: And as the person above me said, every single marketing research firm uses estimates & those firms get paid millions (including NPD).

I don't know where this trend of doubting sales & revenue numbers recently came from.
 
Tomodachi Life is the 3rd best-selling game / SKU in France. That's really impressive. This should incentivize Nintendo to localize more quirky games, and to advertise them better.
 
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