Get real-time updates straight to your device, subscribe now.
To
Paris Games Week, the largest French video game trade fair, will take place in the French capital from November 1st to 5th. At the end of the month the African Electronics and Video Games Festival will take place in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The opportunity to take the pulse of a sector that appears to be showing outrageous financial status, but at the same time the number of layoffs is increasing.
In some ways, this year is one of the best – some would even say “the” best – in video game history. The 2023 vintage is indeed exceptional: this year saw the release of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, Baldur’s Gate 3, Diablo 4, Starfield, Spiderman 2 (which, as the name suggests, is the third episode of the series), Super Mario Wonder and Assassin’s Creed Fata Morgana…
Many were critically acclaimed, but without exception all sold more than a million copies, sometimes within a few days (or hours). Added to this are the successful franchises, of which a new episode is released every year: EA Sports FC 24 (successor to the FIFA series) and the latest Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3, which is expected on November 10th. A license for 450 million copies sold has been transferred to Xbox since October 13th, after the largest takeover in the history of the industry was finally confirmed: Microsoft swallowed Activision Blizzard for 69 billion dollars. One final number: Overall, the video game industry is worth more than $215 billion, twice as much as the cinema and even eight times more than the music industry.