Jobs of the future: the videogame market is growing in France

In 2020, the videogame industry registered 5.3 billion euros in revenues in France. The SELL, French Union for Publishers of Leisure Software, notes in a study on the videogame market, that the industry is one of the few to have been boosted by the Covid-19 epidemic. This health context led “millions of individuals to discover or rediscover this leisure activity and sometimes to change their view of this always-changing media”.

The number of gamers in France is steadily growing

The French Ministry of Culture is also interested in video games (even defining it as the “10th art form”), and notes that professionals, influencers and individuals alike use video game-related content. They “are everywhere, seen and read by millions of people in France and in the world”.

Contrary to popular belief, videogames represent a culture that includes all genders and ages. According to a SELL study, the average age of regular video game players is 39 years old. Many of them are women: 47% women compared to 52% male players. It is also worth noting that 19% of all French regular and occasional gamers are retired individuals! According to a survey by the Ministry of Culture, 53% of French people over the age of 15 played videogames in 2020, compared to 19% in 1997. But the impacts of successive lockdowns are not the only reason behind these figures, since they were 36% in 2008 and already 44% in 2018. According to Vie Publique, there is therefore a growing progress that shows a “steady trend”.

France recognised for its know-how

To play, you obviously need to have games! In this industry, French companies are at the forefront of video game creation. In the latest publication of its Reference Document about Occupations in Videogame Industry, the French Union of Videogames (SNJV in French) listed about 1,350 games in production in France and notes that 750 games are already being marketed in France. 

Vie Publique also notes that this trend is not new: French studios (game development) and publishers (distribution and promotion) have “great importance in the history of video games”. Since the 1980s, French studios and publishers have been recognised for their know-how. The French creators include Ubisoft, a family business initially involved in the distribution of games, turned today into a multinational company with studios located all over the world. Vie Publique also stresses that in 2021, nearly 700 development studios in France, out of the 1,200 companies devoted to video games. In addition, the biggest international publishers regularly call on French studios to develop their games.

Jobs and training courses “made in France”

To create these games, the Reference Document listed 50 professions divided into five major families: management, design, image and sound, technology, publishing and support. To train for these different professions, France can today put forward 133 training organisations, recognised at international level. About the issue, the L’Etudiant website published a list of training courses for working in the video game sector, from bac +2 and bac +3 level. According to L’Etudiant, there are nearly twenty schools in France that train for jobs in video games and animation.

They include some of the member institutions from CampusArt, the network managed by Campus France, such as  ISART Digital, a videogame and animation institution in Paris, Ecole multimédia (all jobs in the digital industry) also in Paris, école Emile Cohl in Lyon, ETPA in Montpellier, Ecole Brassart in Tours (and other locations), Ecole Rubika in Valenciennes, SAE Institute in Paris, and more.

Discover these training courses on the CampusArt website listing more than 650 art training courses in all disciplines, with a simple search by area, keyword, level or institution.