“I simply wanted to give you my support and my high patronage for your video game museum project, an active museum, a living city,” declared Emmanuel Macron in a video broadcast on the Twitch channel “IciJaponCorp”, Sunday November 5. The same day the crowdfunding campaign for the “Odyssée project” must end, an initiative launched by the host of the channel, the videographer and business manager Benoît Theveny, known under the pseudonym Tev, to create a museum of video game in the town of Bussy-Saint-Georges, in Seine-et-Marne. At the time of the President of the Republic’s intervention, the prize pool launched on September 20 exceeded 1.7 million euros.
This message addressed to the channel’s audience was aimed more broadly at the audience of players and professionals in the sector, even if it meant mixing the audiences. Emmanuel Macron begins by congratulating the spectators of “IciJaponCorp” for their “mobilization”, then the visitors to Paris Games Week, the largest French video game show, which is being held until Sunday in the capital. The two events are, however, not linked because Paris Games Week is organized by the main representative of the sector’s commercial interests, the entertainment software publishers’ union (SELL).
In his message, the president also salutes French professionals in the sector, which represents “thousands of jobs: 600 studios in our country and remarkable schools (…)”. Finally, the press release provided to Le Monde by the Elysée also highlights the e-sport sector by recalling the recent drop in VAT to 5.5% on competitive video game events. The measure was adopted in the finance bill for 2024.
A private museum for 2026
The private video game museum project has been carried out for several months by Tev, a YouTuber who also heads a company specializing in e-commerce, tourism and communication which is based in Japan and France. From February 2023, he wanted to find a place to exhibit the collection of objects linked to the history of video games of another French business leader, Ludovic Charles. Speaking to Le Monde, Mr. Charles claims to have more than 2,000 consoles, tens of thousands of game boxes and old computers that would add to the museum’s collections.
The two men accepted a proposal from the town hall of Bussy-Saint-Georges, a town located around thirty kilometers from Paris, to install their private museum within a vast real estate project dedicated to sports and entertainment activities. The initiators of the “Odyssey project” thus hope to create “the largest video game museum in the world”.
According to the municipal councilor in charge of the project, with whom Le Monde spoke, the plans for the building have yet to be defined and the building permit should be filed at the beginning of 2024. Built by a real estate developer, this large museum should see its rent financed thanks to revenues from a commercial space themed on Japanese culture located in the same location, explained Mr. Charles. The money collected from Internet users should only be used to pay for the decorations of the exhibition space, he specified.
An honorary label
Although there is currently no museum dedicated to video games in France, various similar projects have not continued or been successful. The video game museum in Schiltigheim, in Alsace, for example, had to close its doors in 2020 and relocate to Belgium. Institutions, including the national conservatory of arts and crafts (CNAM) and the national research institute in digital sciences and technologies (Inria), as well as associations, such as the Ile-de-France Mo5, are campaigning for a national public museum computers and video games.
The label of high patronage granted to the “Odyssey project” by the President of the Republic remains purely honorary and does not entail any material support. It nevertheless makes it possible to give credibility and media visibility to the project and reflects “a mark of interest from the Head of State”, according to the Elysée. This can support the search for financing: “We will be there to make things easier for you, to support you, to see this project through to the end,” said Emmanuel Macron in his message.
The Head of State is thus making a new gesture towards video games. In a message published on » during the urban riots which followed the death of Nahel M.
