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The 2023 version of Paris Video games Week was introduced final week, with the occasion returning to the French capital this November.
The occasion has been operating since 2010, though the 2020 and 2021 editions have been cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paris Video games Week made a comeback final yr with an version dubbed ‘Restart’. However this yr, the workforce behind the occasion is eager to return to pre-pandemic heights, with the 2023 version given the title ‘Subsequent degree’.
“This ‘Subsequent degree’ version would be the event for us to increase a bit of bit [on] the expertise you possibly can stay at Paris Video games Week,” explains Nicolas Vignolles, basic delegate at organiser SELL, one of many key video games commerce associations in France.
“We’ll attempt to make the expertise larger [with] this enormous native showcase. We try to be extra engaged within the gaming tradition and all of the associated media or sectors related to video video games.”
“A bodily occasion, to advertise merchandise in direction of the general public; it’s nonetheless worthy for the massive corporations, it’s nonetheless one thing that’s invaluable”
Past the apparent publishers, platform holders, and improvement studios, Vignolles says Paris Video games Week is eager to succeed in streaming platforms, anime and manga specialists, esports and cosplay corporations, in addition to popular culture extra usually, to make the occasion a “richer expertise.”
However greater than something, SELL desires the occasion to be a spot the place gamers can go hands-on with yet-to-be-released video games, and is eager to have a properly attended present ground to profit from its strategic spot within the calendar: proper in the course of busy This autumn.
“Paris Video games Week is all the time in a really particular place,” Vignolles says. “We need to have a bodily expertise, a really hands-on expertise, we need to all the time give the event to play to our [audience], to check the video games stay.”
When requested how the 2022 version fared, he laughs and solutions: “It was a battle.” However SELL is eager to proceed exploring bodily occasions regardless of a variety of corporations and reveals having retreated to a extra digital place for the reason that pandemic, or having ceased to exist altogether.
Vignolles says there’s nonetheless a variety of worth for corporations to indicate their titles at a bodily occasion.
“We expect that Paris Video games Week is properly positioned and 2022 has confirmed this place. We’re simply seven weeks earlier than Christmas and it is a very clear place even within the agenda as a result of we’re a transparent B2C occasion simply earlier than Christmas with a transparent client goal, KPIs, and positioning.
“So we have been fairly assured, even in the course of the pandemic interval. And it was confirmed as a result of the three [platform holders] have been at PGW in 2022; we have been the primary occasion on the earth to have the three [platform holders after lockdown].
“[Our] positioning is a energy and we expect we are able to capitalise on that DNA sooner or later – a bodily occasion, to advertise merchandise in direction of the general public, to check the video games in actual [life]; it is nonetheless worthy for the massive corporations, it’s nonetheless one thing that’s invaluable. So we expect we are able to capitalise on that and take the lead on that place.”
Rallying video games corporations to indicate up at a bodily occasion and purchase cubicles on a present ground generally is a battle nowadays, as demonstrated by the demise of E3. And Vignolles is clear about having to beat that sort of problem with Paris Video games Week.
“It is all the time a promise we make to the general public, so we do not need to be misleading. And the promise could be very clear: whenever you go to PGW, you possibly can play video video games. So we have to have the [platform holders], the publishers, we have to have new video games. And it is a showcase, it is a very hands-on expertise, so [if] we need to construct this, we want video video games corporations to be very concerned, even in the best way they are going to be on website. So the clear promise is: in the event you come to Paris Video games Week, you’ll play video games. [But] it is all the time a problem.”
Legacy occasions like E3 disappearing from the scene is not one thing that worries Vignolles, he tells us, however he is preserving an in depth eye on the occasion ecosystem on the opposite facet of the pond nonetheless.
“E3, for the entire ecosystem of video video games, is a pacesetter, is a key occasion, so we’re all the time taking a look at what occurs within the US and particularly in the course of the interval of E3. It is all the time unhealthy information when E3 is disturbed. However E3 will not be lifeless. Possibly they’ll create one thing new, [and] we’re taking a look at that very significantly. However I feel every [organiser] has to resume the best way we construct bodily occasions.”
SELL will announce extra details about the programme and the primary exhibitors concerned in June. And past the deal with gamers, the organiser can also be eager to construct up the occasion’s B2B side, and turn into an unmissable beat within the calendar for studios within the South of Europe.
“To be sincere, our precedence [this year] is to develop the B2C side in some ways,” Vignolles says. “However we need to attempt to develop within the 5 years to come back a really worldwide dimension, particularly if we take into account the southern Europe market. We need to develop a [bigger] B2B part.”
Enterprise conference Sport Connection normally runs alongside Paris Video games Week for a couple of days – and it’ll return this yr as properly. SELL is eager to construct on these foundations to convey the European business collectively, with Vignolles saying they’re at the moment at “the primary stage of this new technique and new positioning,” with discussions occurring with Sport Connection and Enterprise France (a public establishment centered on supporting and selling French corporations).
“[Together], we need to organise an enormous networking night in Paris Video games Week to attach all of the French studios however not solely; additionally to ask a variety of Southern Europe studios to PGW to attach throughout this night with the French ecosystem and possibly to ask extra buyers.
“So will probably be the primary stage this yr. And within the years to come back we need to construct one thing larger, undoubtedly. It is not a precedence at this stage as a result of it’s first a B2C occasion however we’re clearly in a mirrored image in that method, to construct one thing larger.”
He continues: “With modesty, we expect we are able to [play] a task for Southern Europe, possibly to [showcase] extra [of] the gifted studios that exist additionally in Italy, in Spain. After all there are great native occasions in these international locations however possibly Paris Video games Week might be the place to advertise all these studios of Southern Europe. So it is key for the event of Paris Video games Week.”
“We expect we are able to [play] a task for Southern Europe, to [showcase] extra [of] the gifted studios that exist additionally in Italy, Spain”
Discussions have already began with native commerce our bodies and organisations in these international locations, Vignolles provides. And European studios and delegations will already be current within the 2023 version in fact, which he says will “kick off this rising ‘Europeanisation’ technique for the occasion.”
He provides that the thought is not essentially to compete with current European occasions reminiscent of Gamescom, however extra about increasing the worldwide dimension of an in any other case native occasion.
“And clearly we want to the South of Europe [to do that],” he provides. “We expect we might be the place to advertise this ecosystem.”
Paris Video games Week was attended by 300,000 folks in 2019. The purpose this yr is to land someplace between 200,000 and 250,000. Vignolles is hopeful that rallying extra voices from numerous sides of popular culture will assist attain that goal.
“We’ll all the time be a gaming occasion however we need to capitalise on the Paris location and develop the popular culture [aspect], to ask an increasing number of sectors related to gaming. And they’re very to attach with us, due to our viewers and of the recognition of video video games. We expect there’s something larger to construct in that space.”
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