It may not hold the record for the largest number of attendees we have seen in a video game event this year. Gamescom 2023 welcomed about 320,000 in-person visitors. However, Paris Games Week still holds the reputation of being one of Europe’s biggest gaming expos.
This year’s Paris Games Week started on November 1 and came to a close on Sunday, November 5. The annual event was briefly punctuated by years of hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the venue remained the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles in the south of the capital.
The biggest console makers (Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo) fully participated in this year’s Paris Games Week. Also in attendance were some of the biggest video game makers like Ubisoft, Capcom, Bandai Namco, and Square Enix. Like most in-person shows, the Paris Games Week gave fans the opportunity to experience recent releases and some upcoming titles.
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Some of the 2024 releases that guests of the Paris Games Week were allowed to give a trial include Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Tekken 8, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth which is scheduled for release in February 2024.
This autumn has seen a glut in blockbuster video game releases and guests of the Paris Games Week got a chance to play some of the popular releases like PlayStation’s Spider-Man 2, Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
This year’s Paris Games Week is considered the first proper outing for the event after a scaled-down event last year. It was also considered a huge success considering the fact that most publishers now organize proprietary online events where they reveal their next games. This habit was blamed for the fall of E3.
“Our ambition is not necessarily all-out gigantism,” said Nicolas Vignolles, the general delegate of the expo’s organizers. “Video game publishers and manufacturers no longer set quantitative objectives for events but rather a successful experience.”
The spotlight of Paris Games Week was video game schools
One of the talking points of the Paris Games Week 2023 was the video game schools. Visitors were invited to meet “renowned students and teachers” who were available to “guide, advise, and enlighten future video game professionals”.
The event which was hosted “in collaboration with the Women In Games association” had the goal of encouraging young female students to meet and network with industry professionals. Here is a full list of all the games available for demo at the event:
- 30 Birds
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage
- Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
- Dragon Quest Monsters The Dark Prince
- Endless Dungeon
- Fae Farm
- Fashion Dreamer
- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
- Forza Motorsport
- Halo Infinite
- Jujutsu Kaisen Cursed Clash
- Jumanji: Wild Adventures
- Jusant
- Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe & Additional Circuits Pass
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- NARUTO x BORUTO Ultimate Ninja STORM CONNECTIONS
- Party Animals
- PAW Patrol – the Pat’Patrol
- Pikmin 4
- Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet – “The Turquoise Mask
- Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
- Roots of Tomorrow
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl
- SAND LAND
- Splatoon 3
- Starfield
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
- TEKKEN 8
- The Elder Scrolls Online
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- The return of Detective Pikachu
- Towerborne
- Under the Waves
Video game enjoys enormous support from the French government. Last Wednesday, the government said it was “in favor [of the] examination of the effectiveness” of the video game tax credit being extended to 2026. The tax credit is the main financing tool for the video game industry in France.
French parliamentarians will “examine the effectiveness [of the tax credit in 2025 to see] if it works well and if it gives the expected results”, said the French Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire, at the opening ceremony of Paris Games Week.
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