Significant cultural sovereignty in the digital realm does not need another slogan: it demands an operator. This is precisely the ambition embodied by Thotario. In France, we have managed to establish houses, catalogs, public policies, bookstores, and media libraries.
However, in the world of digital cultural goods we still surrender the infrastructure, the usage relationship, and the resale value to foreign platforms. The issue is no longer theoretical: it concerns ebooks, video games, and how a work circulates after its purchase.
Taking control of digital circulation
The European diagnosis already exists. In its ten-year evaluation of Creative Europe, the Commission highlights that cultural, creative, and media sectors remain fragmented “along national and linguistic boundaries.”
This fragmentation stems not only from cultural diversity, undisputed by all, but also generates a scattered market without a structuring secondary actor capable of unifying usage on a continental scale. The starting point is clear: if Europe wants to defend its diversity, it must also organize its circulation channels.
The book provides a concrete demonstration. Eurostat observed in 2025 that the purchase of ebooks and audiobooks varied significantly across EU countries: 22.3% of the population in Ireland, 19.7% in Denmark, but only 1.8% in Bulgaria. In other words, the European space is neither homogeneous nor saturated; it juxtaposes different maturity levels, languages, and practices. In such a context, a meaningful model in France can still take a position before an oligopoly definitively locks in the usages.
At Thotario, we have chosen to address this stalemate through usage. The platform positions itself as a digital secondary market for ebooks, comics, and games, with a “passport” attached to each copy to regulate its traceability, uniqueness, and resale, while creators receive royalties from each transaction. On its website, the company also specifies that the author sets both the initial price and the percentage received during resale; the platform retains 25% in primary sales, and then 10% in resale.
Scaling up without changing nature
The decisive point is not just technical innovation but the possibility of building a European actor based on a French case. Thotario currently aims at two markets, digital books, and PC games, has a functional prototype for ebooks, is developing its game version, has around ten pioneering creators, and is in discussions with two publishing houses, one of which is in an advanced testing stage. For a young structure, the issue is no longer proving that an idea exists but showing that it can aggregate an offering, catalogs, and purchasing habits.
The magnitude justifies this shift. Newzoo estimated the global video game market in 2025 at $188.8 billion; Fortune Business Insights estimated the global book market at $142.95 billion in the same year. Thotario, on the other hand, talks about target markets “of over $200 billion” and double-digit growth.
Even with different methodologies, the logic remains the same: we are no longer talking about an experimental niche, but an economic field where mastering intermediation, usage data, and circulation rules weigh heavily.
I stress one point: expansion only makes sense if it maintains its initial promise. On its crowdfunding page, Thotario articulates the challenge clearly: “Digital opens up unprecedented possibilities for culture: circulating works while rewarding their creators.” The strategy is all there.
Constructing a sovereign actor does not involve Europeanizing a technical rent; it involves reintroducing value for the reader, the player, the author, and tomorrow for publishers seeking an alternative to closed circuits. It is on this French, then European scale, that the battle for digital culture is now being waged.
Find the Thotario project on We do good
Photo credits: ActuaLitté, CC BY SA 2.0
REPORT – Thotario, or the ambition of a new connection around digital works
By Guest Author
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