The video game industry is now a strategic objective for Europe

Far from being a mere toy, video game playing is having an enormous impact worldwide both culturally and economically. The European industry is now the sector’s second most powerful player. Which explains why the EU intends to make the most of its capabilities.

Soft power is a manner of influencing a nation without having recourse to weapons or politics, rather using the nation’s culture or other industries. Hollywood stands out as an example of US soft power par excellence. Something that can also be said of the video game, a powerful cultural vehicle bearing in mind that over 3,000 million people worldwide consider themselves to be gamers; registering a turnover that leaves both the music and movie industries together in its wake. 

After a 2022 that witnessed a slight drop in sales, mainly on account of the difficulty in getting its hands on the semi-conductors needed to make new consoles, 2023 looks set to see a return to positive figures. At least that’s what research by Ampere Analysis suggests: the sector grew by 26% from 2019 to 2021, reaching a record turnover of US$191,000 billion. Sales fell in 2022 for the first time since 2015, losing 1.2% year-on-year. Nonetheless, the market is expected to reach the US$195,000 billion mark this year.

A European Video Game Observatory

Given these figures, the European Union has now come to understand the strategic importance of the sector, a position officially stated in its Report on eSports and video games, adopted on 10 November last by the European Parliament. The legislator must now translate the principles set forth in the resolution into concrete acts: increasing the number of video games produced on the continent and promoting public and private investment, as well as creating a European Video Game Observatory and an archive to preserve the most culturally significant European ones.

The initiative seeks to consolidate the European video game ecosystem, while at the same time retaining talent and boosting the role of the EU in what is a key industry in training youth. Likewise, the report calls for video games to be promoted that showcase European history, diversity and values, such as fair play, solidarity, anti-racism, social inclusion and gender equality.

Poland, the leading producer

“Today, video games constitute an enormous cultural sector that combines art, technology and interaction. They have great potential in terms of the economy, soft power, education and intergenerational engagement”, claimed the Member of the European Parliament and report rapporteur, Laurence Farreng, in the European Parliament after a parliamentary session – in October 2022 – at which measures were called for to drive video game development in the EU. The importance of some national video game industries in the EU were key to inspiring this operation. Particularly Poland, the EU’s leading producer in this field. So much so that in 2019, the Warsaw stock market opened an index dedicated to companies in this sector, thereby enabling the attraction of new capital into the country.

Historically, the USA and Japan were the world’s leading producers, but in recent years things have changed with the enormous growth in China’s market, which in 2021 accounted for 54.6% of the world’s video game exports, approaching a turnover of US$15 billion. Japan, ranks second, albeit at a considerable distance, followed by Poland, Germany and the U S 

100,000 jobs in the EU

Spain (in eighth position, with its 3.1% share of the global market), the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Sweden and France are the other EU countries ranked in the world’s top 15. However, if EU countries are taken together they would be ranked second in this sector. Accordingly, the aim of the European Observatory is precisely this, to coordinate the different national industries to compete with the other global superpowers in this field. 

The proposed strategy seeks to leverage the talent of the nearly 100,000 people who work in the sector throughout the EU, a market in which half of its members considered themselves to be gamers: 50% of whom are women according to the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (IFSE). The average age of gamers, which is around 31, also contributes to the fact that video games are crucial for a continent with such enormous potential, notwithstanding the many difficulties that arise when it comes to harmonising the different national interests. Video games might very well open the door to a new era of European integration.