Financement participatif et engagement des consommateur·rice·s dans l’essor du secteur du jeu de société : un « âge d’or » tiré par la demande ?

• Published in: SCIENCES DU JEU Vol. 14
• Main Authors: Vinciane Zabban, Nicolas Piñeros, Timothé Roux
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: French
• Published: Laboratoire Experice 01.03.2021
• Subjects: board game; consumption; crowdfunding; cultural and creative industries; digitization; leisure worlds
• ISSN: 2269-2657
• DOI: 10.4000/sdj.2866

Board Games are leisures goods that stand at the crossroads of several production sectors and editorial models. This sector is currently experiencing a significant development that is accompanied in France by the structuring and identity-defining efforts of its professionals (publishers, authors). This success is associated with the growth of a noticeable offer of so-called "authors' products", mainly aimed at an adult public, but also by the extension to new markets. We question the role that digital tools and platforms are playing in this growth, in particular crowdfunding, for the professional worlds of board games. The digitization of a sector as dependent as that of board games on the materiality of its production (in terms of manufacturing, distribution and because of the significant logistical costs that these dimensions entail), deserves to be questioned, especially since participatory financing is particularly effective in this sector, compared with other cultural and artistic industries. The article particularly raises the question of the type of production that is affected and generated by digital technologies, and how they contribute to the evolution of the sector as a whole. The analysis is based on two original surveys that were conducted within the Laboratoire EXPERICE and the master Games Studies at the University Sorbonne Paris Nord: the first is a monographic survey carried out on a crowdfunded game project, the second is a series of interviews (n=24) and observations with various professional actors conducted during several editions of the International Games Festival in Cannes in 2018, 2019 and 2020 as part of a project on the editorial models of board games supported by the ICCA LabEx.