IIDEA: total revenue of the Italian gaming market exceeded €2 billion in 2020

IIDEA (the Italian Association of Interactive Digital Entertainment) has prepared a report on the state of the Italian gaming industry by the end of 2020. The total market turnover exceeded €2 billion. Despite the growth of the mobile sector, console games bring the main revenue, while the PC remains the most popular platform for development.The IIDEA study is based on an online survey that was conducted from February 24 to April 1, 2021.

It was attended by employees of local gaming companies, as well as freelancers.

General dataThe turnover of the entire gaming market in 2020 amounted to €2.179 billion — an increase of 21.9% in annual terms.

• 82% of them were for game sales, and 18% — for hardware.Italy is among the top 10 countries by the number of players in the region.
• It has 16.7 million gamers (38% of the total population). At the same time, almost half of them (7.3 million) are women.43% of Italian players are in the 15-34 age group.
• 62% of teenagers aged 11-14 years play on mobile phones.Consoles generate the most revenue — 43%.
• Next are PC games (33%) and mobile (23%).The most popular titles and genres among Italian gamers

Development

41% of all Italian games are created for PC.

• Next in popularity among developers are mobile devices (27%) and consoles (22%).The most popular genres for development are action—adventure games (44%), arcade games (25%), puzzles (21%), platformers (17%) and family/children’s games (14%).
• 74% of Italian developers sell their games on Steam.
• Google Play (47%) and the App Store (46%) are in second and third place. Despite the fact that Epic Games Store ranks last among other stores, it is already used by 25% of studios.The share of different stores in Italy

Data about developers

There are about 160 gaming companies in Italy, employing over 1,600 people (45% more than in 2019).

• 93% of companies use their own capital to finance development.
• At the same time, 28% of studios cooperate with publishers, and another 24% use state aid.A third of Italian studios have a staff of 10 or more employees, and almost 20% have more than 20 employees.
• At the same time, the number of companies with an annual turnover of 500 thousand euros is growing in the country — 26% of the total number of studios.Data about gaming companies in Italy

Italian studios generate 94% of revenue abroad.

• The main markets are Europe (over 60%) and North America (25%). The local market brings only 6% of revenues to local studios.The transition to remote work in connection with the pandemic has had almost no impact on most Italian companies.
• Almost 70% of the studio said that they will continue to use the “remote” in the future.53% of respondents said that the pandemic did not affect the business in any way, while 36% of developers reported delays in the production of games.