While the age-old diatribe on the alleged harmful action of video games continues (but there are investigations that affirm the opposite), every now and then we also talk about numbers regarding gaming.
IIDEA, the trade association of the video game industry in our country, does this annually. Which just published the report on video games in Italy in 2023. Report which, despite the fact that for many months there has been talk of a sector in crisis, brings rather flattering data.
Video games in Italy in 2023
The annual report on gaming in our country is called exactly that, Video games in Italy in 2023, and was published on Thursday 18 April on the IIDEA website.
And, even though there have been cuts in staff and contractions in the world of video games on a global level last year, for Italy the trend continues to be positive. Let's see some numbers.
The video game market in Italy in 2023
For video games in Italy, 2023 was a flattering year. The sector's turnover exceeded 2.3 billion euros, with an increase of +5% compared to 2022. And it allows our country to position itself in the top 5 of European markets.
With a value of 665 million euros (29% of the total market), the hardware segment achieved an increase of even +63% in 2023. Thanks to the availability of new consoles, hardware sales have seen a significant increase, also driving accessory sales, which increased by 46%, reaching a value of 178 million euros in 2023.
Despite the overall decline of 8%, software confirms itself as the most relevant segment of the video game universe in Italywith an estimated value of 1.6 billion euros in 2023, equal to 71% of the total market.
Purchases of new video games increased 6% compared to 2022. 46% concerns video game purchases made through physical distribution channels (equal to 264 million euros, -6% compared to 2022). And the remaining 54% through digital distribution channels, for an estimated value of 314 million euros (+19% compared to 2022). On the other hand, in-game purchases, such as expansions for video games via DLC or microtransactions for consoles and PCs, on-demand services, subscriptions to console services, fell by 42%.
Gamers in Italy
In 2023, video games in Italy involved 13 million people, i.e. 31% of the Italian population between 6 and 64 years old.
Italian video gamers are mainly men, 8 million (61%), with an average age of 30 years, while female video gamers are 4.9 million (38%), with an average age of 31 years.
The overall number of Italian video gamers recorded a decline of 8% compared to 2022. The decrease mainly affected occasional video gamers, i.e. those who play once a month or less.
Furthermore, the gaming audience is mostly adults: 7 out of 10 gamers are in the age group between 18 and 64. The age groups where the highest number of video gamers are concentrated are the 15-24 age group (equal to approximately 3.2 million people) followed by the 45-64 age group (3.1 million).
Types (and times) of games
In 2023, mobile devices appear to be the most used by gamerswith 9.2 million using them primarily to play Brain/Puzzle (20%), Trivia (18%) and Role Playing/Strategy (16%) genres.
Consoles follow, with 5.6 million gamers who mainly play Sports (29%), Racing (26%) and Shooter (22%) genre titles. Finally, PCs, with 4.6 million gamers, who play mainly Strategy (19%), Shooter (16%) and Sports (14%) titles.
73% of gamers play at least an hour a weekfor a total average play time of approximately 6.53 hours per week in 2023 (one hour less than in 2022).
The top ten games
And here is the ranking of the 10 best-selling video games in Italy in 2023:
The comment
Thalita Malagò, General Director of IIDEA, spoke on the data in the report.
Malagò said: “The video game market in Italy is in excellent health and continues its positive phase of development in 2023, recording an overall growth of 28% from 2019 to today.
However, it is important to keep in mind that these exceptional results are the result of atypical situations in recent years: we can therefore look to a possible normalization in 2024. Furthermore, we must not forget the difficult situation in terms of restructuring that has affected the video game sector in the first months of 2024 and is having an impact on several actors, especially at an international level, and in which Italy is involved to a lesser extent.”
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