At Cocktail games, “we were almost to wish for a new confinement”, loose Matthieu d’Epenoux. Since the start of the health crisis, the director of this French publishing company, a specialist in games atmosphere, recorded an increase in sales of 20% to 30%. A new boom after already several years of continuous rise in the market. A general observation at International Games Festival (Fij) from Cannes which was full all weekend, after a white edition last year, with the main players in the sector and more than 80,000 visitors in the aisles of the palace.
“The leisure offer has been profoundly modified by the restrictions. There was logically a strong enthusiasm for those that could be enjoyed at home when the market was already experiencing regular growth before the crisis, of the order of 17% to 20% per year, confirms Patrice Boulet, the co-founder of the Iello company. The Covid-19 has therefore accelerated things. For us, this has resulted in a 30% increase in turnover in 2020 and another 44% in 2021.”
“This period has also uninhibited the adult game”
On the whole of the market which weighs today in France 640 million euros, the annual growth would have reached 13% in 2020 and 2021 against 10% in the previous years, according to the Union of publishers of board games (UEJ ). And game boxes have never sold so well in France.
The figures are not yet consolidated and come from different sources, “but we would be on 21 million units sold in 2020 and 30 million in 2021”, advances Cynthia Reberac, the general commissioner of the Cannes festival. “During the crisis, we had to take care of ourselves. Spend time with family. But I think that period also made adult games more complex. Today, one in six titles is bought by adults for adults,” adds the manager.
Boom in cooperative and narrative games
The audience has indeed grown over the past two years. With confinements, sometimes experienced without children, games for two have also met with great success. “We have indeed observed an effect on family games but also on cooperative and narrative games. [accessibles en termes de règles et faciles à mettre en place]which are the big trend of the moment”, analyzes Martin Vidberg, consultant for the International Games Festival.
The crisis has therefore enabled publishers to attract new audiences. But will this acceleration be able to last? Not so strongly, according to Patrice Boulet. For the publisher who took part in a conference on the subject (“Post-covid review: what lasting impacts on board games?”) during the FIJ, “if some of the new players will continue to consume, the trend should despite everything, to settle down slightly”.