Esports in Italy: growing success in 2020 with an increase in fans
IIDEA, the trade association of the video game industry in Italy, presented today during Round One the new Report on esports in Italy, created in collaboration with Nielsen. According to the research in question, in our country there are 466 thousand people who regularly follow the export events every day and fall into the "avid fan" category, marking a + 33% compared to the previous edition of the Report.
Next we find around 1,400,000 people (+ 20%) who claim to follow an esports event several times a week, falling within the definition of "fanbase". It is also very interesting to note how, according to 66% of respondents, esports support the development of an open and inclusive environment, regardless of gender, age, ability, ethnicity and sexual orientation.
"The data collected in this new edition of the Annual Report on esports in Italy confirm the constant growth of the phenomenon in our country. If we think that in the first survey the fans were about one million, in just two years over four hundred thousand more people have begun to passionately follow this form of entertainment which has also received a further boost to growth as a mass phenomenon thanks to the attention dedicated to it during the first 6 months of 2020 by more general media and television channels that in the past they were oriented only to the transmission of more traditional sporting events ", declared Marco Saletta, President of IIDEA. "In recent years we have worked to encourage stabilization and growth, including professional growth, in the sector. This year we are starting to reap the benefits and lay new foundations, also thanks to the first edition of Round One, the international business event dedicated to esports. , during which publishers, tournament organizers and teams had the opportunity to meet and explore many topics of interest with international guests ".
Moving on to the identikit of esports enthusiasts in Italy, these are mainly males (58%), but the amount of females has grown from 38 to 42% this year, all with an average level of education. tall and an average age of 29 years. 22% of those who follow esports have started doing so in the last year, 32% for more than twelve months. On average, fans dedicate 6.5 hours a week to enjoying esports events, compared to 5 in the previous analysis (+ 35%). The number of fans who spend over five hours a week watching esports events also increased by 18% compared to the 2019 survey. In addition to esports, music and cinema are their main interests.
Why so Italians are dedicated to esports, according to 89% of respondents, it is entertainment, 69% want to improve their personal skills following the performance of professional players, 40% to watch a game before buying it or to learn more about the evolution of gaming and understand what are the latest trends and what the future holds.
According to Italians, moreover, esports facilitate learning English (73% of the sample), they promote a spirit of healthy competition (73%), contribute to relational development and the ability to work in a team (71%) and help to discover and deepen passions even in areas such as history, art and science (60%).
Competitive video games el and the most popular platforms in the eSports field turn out to be sports and shooters, followed by Battle Royale and MOBA. The most used devices to follow esports are Personal Computers (62%) and smartphones (47%), followed by Smart TV apps, including YouTube (31%). Esports fans usually use two screens at the same time, to play games and to watch other content, whether it be following the stream of comments on chats and forums related to the event (33%), checking social networks (31%) or listen to music (25%).
On which platforms are most used by esports enthusiasts, a result emerges which apparently depends above all on the type of game: whether for sports titles (65%) and for shooters (63%) excel consoles, roles are reversed in MOBAs (39% PC vs. 32% console) and MMOs (40% vs 25%). The most used online services are PlayStation Plus (32%), Twitch Prime (29%) and Nintendo Online (21%). 31% of the fanbase also said they were interested in subscribing to TV services or streaming channels with packages that exclusively cover news and events related to esports.
