The video game medium in Italy has often undergone phenomena of ostracism and intellectual isolation, while overseas in the past there was praise for the novelty and future prospects of an audiovisual technology different from television.
Tuttavia the proliferation of new professions, legitimized by major names in the industry such as Miyamoto or the more recent Druckmann with The Last of Us, have greatly legitimated the concept of the video game as it is understood, elevating it not only as a mass phenomenon: the gaming industry, on its own, had revenues in 2021 of a full 183 billion worldwide, more than double that of the film and music industries combined.
According to the interesting and comprehensive report compiled by I.D.E.A. (Italian Interactive Digital Entertainment Association), "among the 160 development studios that responded to the survey, 80% are companies, mostly partnerships, and 75% have been operating in the market for over 4 years, confirming increasing organization and the consolidation of the sector, in an international market scenario of great competitiveness".
È questo the example of Milestone, the Milanese software house that for years now has been a point of reference among publishers that deal with racing games at an international level.
By now, almost all Italian companies that deal with game media, from the smallest to the largest, have long since moved past the start-up phase, and have at least ten people on their staff.
A significant piece of data, when placed in our business reality.
The development of sector-specific skills, from graphic designers to screenwriters, from dubbing and localization professionals (exporting the product is one of the key steps even here) to soundtrack composers, also draws a line between amateurism and professionalism: Italy is finally entering, in small but decisive steps, the slice of the international market that matters, that of a growing and representative development of more effective and long-term entrepreneurship.
The revenue around video games reached 2.2 billion euros in 2022: important figures, because they highlight two fundamental factors in this equation.
The first is that Italians and their passion for video games did not decline during the pandemic and in the period immediately after, supporting demand in a market where the risk of an oversupply of offerings could have permanently damaged the sector, at least in our country.
Altro factor of fundamental relevance is the response that users have provided in the post-pandemic period, with regard to software: considering that the business volume of the software segment is almost 2 million euros, the fact that 15% of the market consists of physical software has led industry professionals to an important reflection: the physical store not only returns to the forefront, but also establishes itself as a decisive player and point of reference for today’s video game market.
