Born on 24 August 1961, Jean-Martial Lefranc holds a law degree and graduated from Sciences Po in 1984. He worked briefly at Publicis Constellation and then at the short-lived TV6 channel, before being appointed Managing Director of Virgin Loisirs which distributes consoles SEGA in France. In particular, he launched the SEGA Master character and the famous slogan "SEGA is stronger than you "He is also responsible for the distribution of films such as Akira (1988) as Chairman of 2001 Audiovisual.

Jean-Martial Lefranc left Virgin in 1991 when the company was bought by SEGA to become a wholly-owned subsidiary, and in 1992 co-founded, with Rémi Herbulot and Philippe Ulrichthe studio Cryo Interactive Entertainment. It produces a number of games, including Dune (1992), Order Blood (1994), Atlantis: Secrets of a forgotten world (1997), Black Moon Chronicles (1999) and MegaRace 3 (2002).

At the same time, via his company Financière de Loisirs founded in 1993, publishes comic strips and produces films, in particular the adaptation of the eponymous video game Wing Commander (1999). Cryo was one of the many victims of the Internet bubble in 2002, but Jean-Martial Lefranc took the opportunity to diversify even further, directing the film The balance of terror (2006), as well as documentaries, comic strip scripts and the publication of the magazine L'Écran Fantastique which he took over in 2007.

He has also co-written Daniel Ichbiah three books, If the Yanks weren't here... (2013), Digital rebels (2014) and Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies for dummies (2018). Lastly, three years ago he launched the video games magazine RetroGamer Collectionrecently produced the documentary series Retrogaming Made in France for ARTE Creative and is preparing a purely audio video game based on the world of Lovecraft.