IIDEA: Italian gamedev industry employs 1600 professionals, up from 1100 in 2018

IIDEA, the Italian Interactive Digital Entertainment Association, has released the fifth biennial census on Italy’s video game sector.

The overview is based on a study conducted online among Italian game development companies and freelancers from February 24 to April 1, 2021.

Here are some of the main takeaways from the study:

• PC remains the preferred development platform (41%), followed by mobile (27%) but development for console is gaining share (22%).
• The most common genres chosen by Italian studios are Action/Adventure (44%), Arcade (25%) and Puzzle game (21%).
• Italian companies are showing signs of maturity, with 73% of development firms now operating in the market for more than four years. The number of firms with over €500,000 in annual turnover and over 20 employees is growing. A third of firms now fall under the definition of SME (10+ employees) and a fifth have more than 20 employees. In the 2018 census, 17% were businesses with 10+ employees and the remaining 83% were microenterprises.
• There are now over 1600 professionals employed across around 160 studios in 2021. This is up from 1100 devs in 2018. 79% of employees are under 36 years old.
• Italian devs see 94% of their revenue come from the international market, with the biggest market being Europe (60%), followed by North America (25%). Italy represents only 6% of the turnover of local operators.
• The vast majority of respondents self-finance their projects (93% vs 88% 2018)The financial support from publishers has increased to 28% from 21% in 2018. 2021 is also seeing an increase in the use of public funding (24% vs. 6% in 2018) and banking institutions (18% vs. 6% in 2018). IIDEA tends to attribute this growth to the increased confidence in Italian studios.

The full study is available here.