76% of industry revenue now digital, 3% overall growth in EU revenue and 51% of Europeans playing games, ISFE’s annual update on Europe’s video games industry reveals a series of insightful facts

Ahead of the world’s biggest, now virtual video games event, gamescom, this week, ISFE publishes its annual “Key Facts”, celebrating one of the fastest growing creative industries in the EU in numbers.  The insightful report ISFE Key Facts presents the economic, societal and demographic highlights of Europe’s video games sector.

ISFE’s Chairman, Olaf Coenen, said:

“This will be a year none of us will forget and our 2020 report will no doubt tell an unusual story. 2019 saw our sector continue to play a considerable part in Europe’s digital success, largely due to its creative talent and capacity for innovation with digital sales representing 76 % of the revenue in key European markets. The 2019 data also illustrates the diversity of our audience with women representing 45% of Europe’s video game players.”

Supplementing this look back at data from 2019, on 28 August, data related to the sector during Europe’s lockdown will be presented at the gamescom congress. Join the virtual session on video games, EU policy priorities and the impact of Covid-19 here.

Key Facts 2020 – highlights

• European revenue grew 3% over the year and now totals  €21.6 bn. Since 2014, revenue has grown by 55% in the key European markets covered by GameTrack.
• Digital revenue  continues to grow, increasing to 76 % in 2019 (74% in 2018), Revenue from consoles remains stable representing 43% of the total.  Streaming and on-demand gameplay represent €324 million in the key European markets.
• More than 51% of Europeans aged 6-64 play video games and the average age of video gameplayers in the EU is 31 years old. 45% of EU video gameplayers are female.
• In 2019, the average weekly video game play time was 8.6 hours, average weekly time spent on social media was 14 hours and average weekly time watching TV/VOD was 25 hours.
• Pan-European self and co-regulation for minor protection: +35 countries in Europe use ISFE’s PEGI age rating and descriptor system for video games and further  national consumer education programmes have been launched this year to raise awareness of PEGI, parental control tools and reponsible gameplay.

The full report is accessible here. Data used in the publication is extracted from GameTrack and GSD reports: https://www.isfe.eu/data-key-facts/

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