It’s an exciting time to be a game developer in Germany. That’s according to the latest announcement by the German Games Industry Association (GAME) which observes that the country has seen an encouraging climb in the gaming industry as the total number of games companies has grown by 15.5% year-on-year.
Consistent with this growth, the total number has increased by an impressive 46% since 2020.
Now reaching a total of 908 games companies in the country, the number of employees in development studios has grown to 11,992 – meaning overall employment within the industry has risen by almost 7%. In fact, when combined with the extended games labour market (including jobs such as media and service providers), Germany’s games industry is a great place to be, being home to upwards of 30,000 jobs.
Smaller startups lead the charge
The growing number of new companies is a positive sign for the industry’s future, and for Germany’s role within it. This rings especially true after the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development declared that Poland had overtaken Germany for third place in workforce size in Europe – a blow to Germany that the country may now have recovered from.
GAME previously announced Germany’s rebound in growth on the back of gamesmap.de and Goldmedia data collected between May 2022 and May 2023, noting that the vast majority of its gaming companies are developers. As many as 861 of the 908 total are developers, in fact, with 411 of them being publishers also.
Meanwhile, the remaining 47 companies all specialise in the marketing of games.
It is indicated through the disparity between new company growth and employment growth that many startups are smaller studios.
“The federal government’s funding of games is proving effective. It is now in the hands of the coalition government as to whether Germany can continue to catch up with the top games locations around the world,” GAME managing director Felix Falk stated.
“The ongoing wave of game company start-ups shows the huge potential that Germany has and proves that putting better parameters in place was precisely the right step to take to tap this potential. The federal government and the German Bundestag must now reverse the recent games funding cuts and increase the funding to €125 million to further facilitate the positive growth.”
GAME is a co-organiser of Gamescom, an event taking place in Cologne, Germany this August with up to 3,000 industry people expected to attend.
