IIDEA takes stock of the video game industry in Italy in 2022

He rIIDEA 2022 contribution on gaming in Italy reveals an evolving (though not growing by sales) video game industry, with more and more jobs – and more and more women. The organization presented it in Rome in front of the senator Lucia BorgonzoniUndersecretary at the Ministry of Culture.

IIDEA presents the 2022 report on gaming in Italy

The report analyzes iconsumi and the video game creative industry in our country. A market that in Italy has registered a slight decrease of 1.2% compared to 2021arriving at 2.2 billion euros. The main cause was the lack of availability of next-generation consoles: hardware sales fell 7.7%, while software sales fell 0.5%.

The digital format remains the most popular for games on consoles and PC, with 42.3% of sales. But there is also a recovery of the physical format in stores, with 15.7%. Apps account for 42% of the market.

Gamers in Italy are the 32% of the population between 6 and 64 years old: I am 14.2 million people, down from 15.5 million in 2021. The decrease mainly concerns computer gamers. The average age of gamers is 30 years old, 80.9% are adults and 19.1% are minors. The most represented age groups are the one between between 45 and 64 years old (24.6%) and between 15 and 24 years old (24.0%). The figure for adults reflects the low birth rate in Italy.

The world of video games in Italy is very varied and dynamic. Women are almost half of gamers (44%) and prefer mobile devices (69.7%), while men are more likely to use consoles (45.8%) or PCs (38%).

The average time spent playing video games has dropped to 7.52 hours a week, returning to pre-pandemic levels. This shows that video games are a leisure activity and not an addictive one. The video game market has spawned a turnover of 2.2 billion euros in 2022, with a slight decrease compared to the previous year, but with growth in companies and workers in the sector. Video games are therefore an important cultural and economic phenomenon for our country.