Two new research reports from Newzoo - the 2011 French National Gamers Survey (L’Etude Nationale des Jeux Video) and the international Games Market Revenue Report - reveal that 24 million French citizens spend a total of 27 million hours per day playing games. Interestingly, less than half (42 percent) of those gamers ever spend money on games. According to Newzoo, total consumer spending is expected to reach €3.2bn in 2011, down 10 percent from 2010. Almost three quarters (73 percent) buy PC, Mac or console games, including second-hand trade, digital downloads and import.
Spending on new boxed games has dropped to 41 percent of all money spent, totaling to €1.3bn, comparable to what IDEF en SELL recently projected for France in 2011. Spending on downloadable PC or Mac games is expected to grow 22 percent compared to last year. Spending on console DLC is expected to surpass €120 million or 8 percent of all console spending. Online and mobile gaming takes 51 percent of all time spent playing games, and 26 percent of spending on social network games (+11 percent) and mobile devices including iOS devices (+9 percent).
"France is a relatively conservative market as console and PC/Mac gaming still take the majority of money," notes Newzoo CEO and co-founder Peter Warman. "At the same time, second-hand trade and import form a larger share in France compared to Germany or the UK. Also, playing games online for free is immensely popular in France. In 2011 we foresee the micropayment business models of mobile, online and MMO games converting more and more players to payers, a trend that has been underway longer in the US and other main EU territories."
An infograph showing the numbers in perspective can be found at Newzoo, while more information on those surveyed as part of the study can be found here.
