2025年德国游戏行业报告（英）

Annual Report of the German Games Industry 2025Content 3Publishergame – The German Games Industry Association Friedrichstraße 165 10117 BerlinGestaltungBureau Ole Gehling www.olegehling.deFind the digital annual report here!Editorial401 Video game players in Germany802 German video games market1403 The games industry in Germany26.1Companies and employment figures.2Games funding.3The ten demands of the German games industry04 gamescom and devcom4605 German Computer Game Awards5206 Entertainment Software Self-Regulation Body (USK)54Interview: Sandra Winterberg on the International Computer Game Collection07 Foundation for Digital Games Culture58Interview: Nandita Wegehaupt on the games scholarship08 esports player foundation62Interview: Julius Althoff on the Esports Team Berlin and Olympic Esport Games09 About game – The German Games Industry Association6610 Development of the German games market since 1995744 EditorialEditorial 5Dear readers,From the perspective of the German games industry, 2024 can certainly be described as bumpy. Although the wave of consolidation in the international games sector slowed last year, projects continued to be cancelled, employees laid off and studios closed worldwide. These developments pose a challenge for the German games industry in particular, which is dominated by small and medium-sized studios that rely to a large extent on international publishers and partners to realise their projects. This is especially true when, as in 2024, an absence of reliable long-term games funding in Germany brings cost disadvantages of 30 per cent compared to relevant international locations. However, particularly in the second half of the year, there was also good news. On the occasion of gamescom, the new funding guidelines of the then responsible Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action were announced. While these guidelines in part worsened the situation for many companies, they also clarified the conditions that are to apply when the government resumes acceptance of funding applications. And the 33 million euros made available by the German Bundestag to the Minister of State for Culture and the Media one year earlier for the promotion of game development were implemented in exciting form: the Press Start: Games Founding Grant, the first programme to provide targeted support to game developers over a period of a year and a half for realisation of their projects. The overwhelming demand demonstrates that there continues to be a huge desire to develop games and take the leap into entrepreneurship in Germany. In the midst of this back and forth on games funding, Germany’s governing coalition of the SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and FDP also collapsed. The budget for 2025 had not been resolved up to that point. This in particular brought added challenges for games companies. As became apparent shortly before the end of 2024, when funding applications could once again be submitted, this uncertainty gave rise to tight r