2025年德国游戏行业报告

Editorial4 01Video game players in Germany8 02German video games market14 03The games industry in Germany26 .1Companies and employment figures .3The ten demands of the Germangames industry 04gamescom and devcom46 05German Computer Game Awards52 06Entertainment SoftwareSelf-Regulation Body (USK)54 Interview: Sandra Winterberg on theInternational Computer Game Collection 07Foundation for DigitalGames Culture58 Interview: Nandita Wegehaupt on the gamesscholarship 08esports player foundation62 Interview: Julius Althoff on the Esports TeamBerlin and Olympic Esport Games 09About game – The GermanGames Industry Association66 Publishergame – The German GamesIndustry AssociationFriedrichstraße 16510117 Berlin 10Development of the Germangames market since 199574 GestaltungBureau Ole Gehlingwww.olegehling.de Bundestag to the Minister of State for Culture andthe Media one year earlier for the promotion ofgame development were implemented in excitingform: the Press Start: Games Founding Grant, thefirst programme to provide targeted support togame developers over a period of a year and a halffor realisation of their projects. The overwhelmingdemand demonstrates that there continues to be ahuge desire to develop games and take the leap intoentrepreneurship in Germany. In the midst of this back and forth on gamesfunding, Germany’s governing coalition of the SPD,Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and FDP also collapsed. Thebudget for 2025 had not been resolved up to thatpoint. This in particular brought added challengesfor games companies. As became apparentshortly before the end of 2024, when fundingapplications could once again be submitted, thisuncertainty gave rise to tight restrictions thatthe practical reality of game development makesvirtually impossible for applicants to complywith. As a result, despite the resumption of thefunding application process at the end of 2024,many games companies lack the necessaryinternationally competitive framework conditions.Our game industry barometer showed at the startof 2025 just how negatively companies assessGermany’s international competitiveness. Dear readers, From the perspective of the German gamesindustry, 2024 can certainly be described asbumpy. Although the wave of consolidation inthe international games sector slowed last year,projects continued to be cancelled, employeeslaid off and studios closed worldwide. Thesedevelopments pose a challenge for the Germangames industry in particular, which is dominated bysmall and medium-sized studios that rely to a largeextent on international publishers and partners torealise their projects. This is especially true when,as in 2024, an absence of reliable long-term gamesfunding in Germany brings cost disadvantages of30 per cent compared to relevant internationallocations. The development in the number of employees andcompanies in the sector clearly shows the impactof the difficult conditions on Germany as a gameproduction location: after years of strong growthin some areas, both figures are now declining. Thelaunch of the Federal funding for video games in2020 was largely responsible for the subsequentboom in start-ups, which in turn led to a significantincrease in the number of employees in theindustry. Meanwhile, the challenging conditionsinternationally and the unreliable and unpredictablefunding situation in Germany have put an end tothis development for the time being. However, particularly in the second half of theyear, there was also good news. On the occasionof gamescom, the new funding guidelines of thethen responsible Ministry for Economic Affairsand Climate Action were announced. While theseguidelines in part worsened the situation for manycompanies, they also clarified the conditionsthat are to apply when the government resumesacceptance of funding applications. And the33 million euros made available by the German Against this backdrop, the coalition agreementbetween the CDU, CSU and SPD following thefederal election at beginning of 2025 givescause for hope. The new governing coalition ofChristian Democrats and Social Democrats notonly recognises the huge cultural, economic andtechnological potential of the games industry andits role as a pacesetting driver of innovation, but hasalso announced the introduction of additional taxbreaks for game development in Germany. And lessthan 50 days after taking office, the new federalgovernment, most notably the federal ministerresponsible for research and games, Dorothee Bär,followed up on the coalition’s pledge to increasesupport for the industry by designating 88 millioneuros for games funding in the budget proposalfor 2025 and 125 million euros from 2026 onwards.This gives companies significantly greater planningsecurity as well as the breathing space they needuntil the additional tax breaks announced in thecoalition agreement are implemented. growth could be seen in online gaming services likecloud gaming – which underscores the perpetualdynamics and innovative stren