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Containment has broadened the practice and audiences of video games

Published on 27 April 2021
Update on 26 September 2022
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Summary

The rise of video games has grown even stronger, with 53% of gamers during confinement, compared with 44% in 2018, according to the survey "Cultural practices " conducted by Credoc at the request of the Ministry of Culture.

This progression has benefited first of all women who are 51% to play when they were only 39% in 2018: it reduces the gap with men whose practice reaches 55% against 49% in 2018.

It also benefits older individuals, starting at age 40, and even more so at age 60 and above: while 15-24 year olds played nearly 5 times as much as 60+ year olds in 2018, the ratio is only 2.3 during confinement.

All social categories are increasing their videogame practice, but this increase appears more spectacular for non-graduates and workers (going from 28% and 42% respectively in 2018 to 44% and 58%).

Finally, the increase in practice is very significant among single-parent families (+25 points), couples with children (+14 points), and people living alone (+14 points).

"Thus, note Anne Jonchery and Philippe Lombardo (Department of Studies, Forecasting and Statistics of the Ministry of Culture), family sociability seems to stimulate the craze for video games, just as, at the other extreme, confinement alone, revealing two modalities of practice:
  • on the one hand, a shared and collective practice (among single-parent families who play, 48% of individuals play together, and among couples with children, 53% play together);
  • on the other hand a solitary practice (87% of individuals confined alone play alone)".

A change in the way video games are played

Référence :

Video games have also benefited from a change in social view, much more positive: thus the World Health Organization, which alerted in 2019 on the dangers of addiction to video games by classifying it as a pathology, was at the initiative "Play Apart Together" ("play each on his own but together"). Launched by 18 game publishers, this campaign recommended online gaming as a way to promote social distancing. The publishers committed to broadcasting prevention messages during the games, urging players to adopt health measures (social distancing, regular hand washing, barrier gestures).

Video games and sociability

Video games are the cultural activity most practiced with people at a distance (11% of players), via online games and especially massively multiplayer role-playing games.

Those who played remotely with others during confinement were particularly young (58% were under 25 years of age and 22% were between 25 and 39 years of age), and 20% were confined alone, with this video game practice helping to break the isolation.

In the annual study " The French and video games ", the SELL (syndicate of leisure software publishers), highlights a confinement effect on the practice of video games

  • In 2020, if 71%* of French people play video games at least occasionally, 52%** play them regularly, an increase of 3% compared to last year.
  • French regular players are 53% male and 47% female, and their average age is 39 - it was 40 in 2019.
The professional video game union comments extensively on the "sociable" dimension of video games during confinement: " more than one out of two players (52%) considers that playing video games helps create social links. 72% of French people consider video games as a leisure activity for the whole family".

"Egotistical bandage".

Laurent Trémel, a sociologist (whose work has focused in particular on the practice of role-playing games and video games in relation to education) puts this contribution of the video game to the social link into perspective and attributes to the console, "in the face of crises ", a function of " egotic band-aid ". He reminds us " that in terms of frequency and duration of games, video games still mainly concern teenagers and young male adults, this is particularly true for consoles. Faced with a problematic situation in real life - unemployment, dequalification, questioning of the process of upward social mobility known during the second half of the 20th century - these products provide the possibility of leading a second, more gratifying life, where your avatar will easily become an exceptional being, where your sports, warrior or love performances will be "boosted" by a predefined program".

Under the title, Can the game save us? Isabelle Patroix, a researcher at Grenoble École de Management (GEM), looks back at several citizen science initiatives that used video games to encourage patients to take part in research in the field. For example, game design students created a serious game in 48 hours to help people understand the importance of clinical trials and how they are conducted. King Of Trial was created during the Medical Game Jam organized last December by Compare and the AP-HP.

Références :

Persistence of a "masculine" association with video games

In " Video games, sociology of a mass leisure activity ", sociologist Samuel Coavoux, recalls the controversies that have accompanied the growing success of video games: dangers of representations of violence during the 1990s, denunciation of the addictive nature of video games during the 2000s. " From now on, the strongest tensions in the public debate are around misogyny, racism, heteronormativity, and more broadly the closure of this world."The inexorable massification of video games, one of the most widespread leisure activities today, necessarily leads to the diversification of its public and to the concomitant emergence of conflicts between newcomers and fractions of the most established players.

Samuel Coavoux highlights the opposition that cleaves this universe: " the one that separates the games of the heart of the canon and the games perceived as producing low-intensity experiences. The definition of the legitimate gamer is linked to this: the "real" gamer would be the one who plays "real" games. This definition tends to invisibilize and marginalize women by associating gaming with masculinity (...) This association of video games with the masculine has important consequences for female gamers. The possibility of finding peer groups to share an interest in gaming is less for girls than for boys, so female gamers are more often isolated. (...) Online, they are subjected to verbal violence and sexual harassment, especially in competitive games ... Generally speaking, the lower level of practice of women, especially adults, can be explained at least in part by the violence of the reactions they face and by the weakness of female gaming sociability, two phenomena linked to the association of video games with the masculine.

Photo ©Pixabay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Référence :

Sources

Containment has broadened the practice and audiences of video games

The rise of video games has grown even stronger, with 53% of gamers during confinement, compared with 44% in 2018, according to the survey "Cultural practices " conducted by Credoc at the request of the Ministry of Culture.

This progression has benefited first of all women who are 51% to play when they were only 39% in 2018: it reduces the gap with men whose practice reaches 55% against 49% in 2018.

It also benefits older individuals, starting at age 40, and even more so at age 60 and above: while 15-24 year olds played nearly 5 times as much as 60+ year olds in 2018, the ratio is only 2.3 during confinement.

All social categories are increasing their videogame practice, but this increase appears more spectacular for non-graduates and workers (going from 28% and 42% respectively in 2018 to 44% and 58%).

Finally, the increase in practice is very significant among single-parent families (+25 points), couples with children (+14 points), and people living alone (+14 points).

"Thus, note Anne Jonchery and Philippe Lombardo (Department of Studies, Forecasting and Statistics of the Ministry of Culture), family sociability seems to stimulate the craze for video games, just as, at the other extreme, confinement alone, revealing two modalities of practice:
  • on the one hand, a shared and collective practice (among single-parent families who play, 48% of individuals play together, and among couples with children, 53% play together);
  • on the other hand a solitary practice (87% of individuals confined alone play alone)".

A change in the way video games are played

Référence :

Video games have also benefited from a change in social view, much more positive: thus the World Health Organization, which alerted in 2019 on the dangers of addiction to video games by classifying it as a pathology, was at the initiative "Play Apart Together" ("play each on his own but together"). Launched by 18 game publishers, this campaign recommended online gaming as a way to promote social distancing. The publishers committed to broadcasting prevention messages during the games, urging players to adopt health measures (social distancing, regular hand washing, barrier gestures).

Video games and sociability

Video games are the cultural activity most practiced with people at a distance (11% of players), via online games and especially massively multiplayer role-playing games.

Those who played remotely with others during confinement were particularly young (58% were under 25 years of age and 22% were between 25 and 39 years of age), and 20% were confined alone, with this video game practice helping to break the isolation.

In the annual study " The French and video games ", the SELL (syndicate of leisure software publishers), highlights a confinement effect on the practice of video games

  • In 2020, if 71%* of French people play video games at least occasionally, 52%** play them regularly, an increase of 3% compared to last year.
  • French regular players are 53% male and 47% female, and their average age is 39 - it was 40 in 2019.
The professional video game union comments extensively on the "sociable" dimension of video games during confinement: " more than one out of two players (52%) considers that playing video games helps create social links. 72% of French people consider video games as a leisure activity for the whole family".

"Egotistical bandage".

Laurent Trémel, a sociologist (whose work has focused in particular on the practice of role-playing games and video games in relation to education) puts this contribution of the video game to the social link into perspective and attributes to the console, "in the face of crises ", a function of " egotic band-aid ". He reminds us " that in terms of frequency and duration of games, video games still mainly concern teenagers and young male adults, this is particularly true for consoles. Faced with a problematic situation in real life - unemployment, dequalification, questioning of the process of upward social mobility known during the second half of the 20th century - these products provide the possibility of leading a second, more gratifying life, where your avatar will easily become an exceptional being, where your sports, warrior or love performances will be "boosted" by a predefined program".

Under the title, Can the game save us? Isabelle Patroix, a researcher at Grenoble École de Management (GEM), looks back at several citizen science initiatives that used video games to encourage patients to take part in research in the field. For example, game design students created a serious game in 48 hours to help people understand the importance of clinical trials and how they are conducted. King Of Trial was created during the Medical Game Jam organized last December by Compare and the AP-HP.

Références :

Persistence of a "masculine" association with video games

In " Video games, sociology of a mass leisure activity ", sociologist Samuel Coavoux, recalls the controversies that have accompanied the growing success of video games: dangers of representations of violence during the 1990s, denunciation of the addictive nature of video games during the 2000s. " From now on, the strongest tensions in the public debate are around misogyny, racism, heteronormativity, and more broadly the closure of this world."The inexorable massification of video games, one of the most widespread leisure activities today, necessarily leads to the diversification of its public and to the concomitant emergence of conflicts between newcomers and fractions of the most established players.

Samuel Coavoux highlights the opposition that cleaves this universe: " the one that separates the games of the heart of the canon and the games perceived as producing low-intensity experiences. The definition of the legitimate gamer is linked to this: the "real" gamer would be the one who plays "real" games. This definition tends to invisibilize and marginalize women by associating gaming with masculinity (...) This association of video games with the masculine has important consequences for female gamers. The possibility of finding peer groups to share an interest in gaming is less for girls than for boys, so female gamers are more often isolated. (...) Online, they are subjected to verbal violence and sexual harassment, especially in competitive games ... Generally speaking, the lower level of practice of women, especially adults, can be explained at least in part by the violence of the reactions they face and by the weakness of female gaming sociability, two phenomena linked to the association of video games with the masculine.

Photo ©Pixabay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Référence :

Sources

Labo Société Numérique

Labo République Française Agence nationale de cohésion des territoires
Containment has broadened the practice and audiences of video games