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The Jahresreport der deutschen Games-Branche 2021 (Annual Report of the German Games Industry 2021) was published on August 24th on game.de the homepage of the Verband der deutschen Games-Branche (Association of the German Games Industry).
It's a bit late because of that, but I don't think many have this on their radar and I will try my best to show you it's contents and to translate it into English for your understanding.
I'm not a native English speaker, so if anything is unclear, just feel free to ask for clarification!
Without further ado:
- On average, players are over 37 years old --> as you can see, this is a growing trend, although from 2020 to 2021 that age dipped a little bit by 0,1 year; would be interesting to see if that indicates a trend reversal or if it's just an exception (perhaps caused by the pandemic?).
- 48% of players are female, 52% of players are male
- data as of January 2021
- 58% of Germans play video games at least occasionally, this is a growth of 5% in comparison to last year's report
- the biggest group are players in the age range from 50 to 69, the so-called "Silver Gamers", that make out roughly 1/3 of all players in Germany; those are also responsible for the growing average age of all players
- data as of January 2021
- Smartphones continue to be the most popular gaming platform in Germany; this platform profited the most by the overall player growth of 5%
- They note that the growth in console gaming was shown by the lack of stock of Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5 and Xbox Series S/X
- calculations based on data from 2019/2020
- They note that this chart is including physical and digital sales. We know that Nintendo doesn't share digital with NPD for example, so I don't know how accurate that is.
- "German Games Market 2020 with a significant jump in sales", 32% in comparison to 2019
- top to bottom: 163m in subscription services
692m in fees for online services
1.169m in software sales
3.252m in in-app-purchases
3.255m in hardware sales (includes consoles, handhelds, gaming PCs, VR headsets and other accessories)
= 8.531m (growth of 32% in comparison to the 6.463m in 2019)
- with that Germany keep the position as the biggest gaming market in Europe and the 5th biggest in the world
- overall, gaming hardware saw the biggest demand ever in Germany
- this growth was driven by the pandemic
- most used the time during the pandemic to upgrade their PCs or buy consoles
- high demand for Nintendo Switch, as well as PS5 and Xbox Series S/X and new graphics cards led to this growth; all of those products were hard to get in 2020 and went out of stock quickly
- they name World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV as examples for the growth of subscriptions
- the biggest growth, of 44%, we can see in in-app-purchases
- calculations based on data from 2019/2020
- the trend continues: app-purchases decline (by 15% yoy), in-app-purchases grow (by 23% yoy), further showing that the F2P model is the way to go on smartphone & tablets
- big jump of sales in online-gaming services
- cloud gaming services, gaming subscription services and online gaming subscription services all saw growth year over year
- calculations based on data from 2019/2020
- "More than every second video game for PC and consoles was bought as a download in 2020."
- almost 6 out of 10 games were sold as downloads (58%), a clear continuation of the trend, just further accelerated by the pandemic
- 41% of money made by video game sales came from digital games
- calculations based on data from 2019/2020
- good summary how the different kinds of sales are relocated (software sales, in-app-purchases, fees for subscription services)
- "Number of employees in the core labor market (development studios & publishers) of the Games Industry is growing.", by 8%
- overall the number of employees in the gaming industry is declining 4% yoy, caused by the decline in the extended market (service providers, retail, educational institutions, media and in public sector related to the games industry) of 11%
- 27.021 people work in the games industry (10.906 in the core market and 16.115 in the extended market) as of May 2021
- data as of May 2021
- 314 companies that solely develop games (+51% yoy)
- 32 companies that solely publish games (+7% yoy)
- 403 companies that both develop and publish games (+5% yoy)
- overall growth of 20%
- on average companies are 7 years old or younger
- every second company is 5 years or younger
- 7 out of 10 companies employed less than 10 people
- 8 out of 10 employees are subject to mandatory social insurance contributions
- 7 out of 10 employees work full-time
- 8 out of 10 employees are employed on a permanent basis
- 25% of employees are female; they note that this is way higher than in other areas of the digital industry
- 27% of employees don't have the German citizenship
- the locations for companies in the gaming sector are spread out all over Germany, it's a bit more concentrated in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne though
- data as of May 2021
- "The growth of the sales of German games companies is more slowly than the growth of the overall market."
- international productions have sales of 4.583m while German production only achieve sales of 191m, which is only 4.2% of the overall market
- the market for German game productions is growing, but very slowly and in no real comparison to the growth of international productions
- only in Germany produced mobile games saw growth in the German market (by 1,2%), in Germany produced PC and console games as well as mobile and browser games saw declines of 0,6% and 10,4% respectively
- if you look at this map you can clearly see that Germany produced not a single game which won a sales award in 2020
- Japan led with 9 sales awards, the USA followed with 7, then Canada with 4, France with 2 and Great Britain and Poland both with 1 sales award in 2020
You can find the full presentation with even more information and in-depth analysis here: https://www.game.de/publikationen/jahresreport-2021/
I provided the graphs and charts as visual aids and tried my best to summarize and translate important parts from the associated text passages for you.
This is the first time I'm doing this, so I'm very open to any sort of critisism and feedback!
I hope this data is insightful for you and I'm here for any questions.
It's a bit late because of that, but I don't think many have this on their radar and I will try my best to show you it's contents and to translate it into English for your understanding.
I'm not a native English speaker, so if anything is unclear, just feel free to ask for clarification!
Without further ado:
- On average, players are over 37 years old --> as you can see, this is a growing trend, although from 2020 to 2021 that age dipped a little bit by 0,1 year; would be interesting to see if that indicates a trend reversal or if it's just an exception (perhaps caused by the pandemic?).
- 48% of players are female, 52% of players are male
- data as of January 2021
- 58% of Germans play video games at least occasionally, this is a growth of 5% in comparison to last year's report
- the biggest group are players in the age range from 50 to 69, the so-called "Silver Gamers", that make out roughly 1/3 of all players in Germany; those are also responsible for the growing average age of all players
- data as of January 2021
- Smartphones continue to be the most popular gaming platform in Germany; this platform profited the most by the overall player growth of 5%
- They note that the growth in console gaming was shown by the lack of stock of Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5 and Xbox Series S/X
- calculations based on data from 2019/2020
- They note that this chart is including physical and digital sales. We know that Nintendo doesn't share digital with NPD for example, so I don't know how accurate that is.
- "German Games Market 2020 with a significant jump in sales", 32% in comparison to 2019
- top to bottom: 163m in subscription services
692m in fees for online services
1.169m in software sales
3.252m in in-app-purchases
3.255m in hardware sales (includes consoles, handhelds, gaming PCs, VR headsets and other accessories)
= 8.531m (growth of 32% in comparison to the 6.463m in 2019)
- with that Germany keep the position as the biggest gaming market in Europe and the 5th biggest in the world
- overall, gaming hardware saw the biggest demand ever in Germany
- this growth was driven by the pandemic
- most used the time during the pandemic to upgrade their PCs or buy consoles
- high demand for Nintendo Switch, as well as PS5 and Xbox Series S/X and new graphics cards led to this growth; all of those products were hard to get in 2020 and went out of stock quickly
- they name World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV as examples for the growth of subscriptions
- the biggest growth, of 44%, we can see in in-app-purchases
- calculations based on data from 2019/2020
- the trend continues: app-purchases decline (by 15% yoy), in-app-purchases grow (by 23% yoy), further showing that the F2P model is the way to go on smartphone & tablets
- big jump of sales in online-gaming services
- cloud gaming services, gaming subscription services and online gaming subscription services all saw growth year over year
- calculations based on data from 2019/2020
- "More than every second video game for PC and consoles was bought as a download in 2020."
- almost 6 out of 10 games were sold as downloads (58%), a clear continuation of the trend, just further accelerated by the pandemic
- 41% of money made by video game sales came from digital games
- calculations based on data from 2019/2020
- good summary how the different kinds of sales are relocated (software sales, in-app-purchases, fees for subscription services)
- "Number of employees in the core labor market (development studios & publishers) of the Games Industry is growing.", by 8%
- overall the number of employees in the gaming industry is declining 4% yoy, caused by the decline in the extended market (service providers, retail, educational institutions, media and in public sector related to the games industry) of 11%
- 27.021 people work in the games industry (10.906 in the core market and 16.115 in the extended market) as of May 2021
- data as of May 2021
- 314 companies that solely develop games (+51% yoy)
- 32 companies that solely publish games (+7% yoy)
- 403 companies that both develop and publish games (+5% yoy)
- overall growth of 20%
- on average companies are 7 years old or younger
- every second company is 5 years or younger
- 7 out of 10 companies employed less than 10 people
- 8 out of 10 employees are subject to mandatory social insurance contributions
- 7 out of 10 employees work full-time
- 8 out of 10 employees are employed on a permanent basis
- 25% of employees are female; they note that this is way higher than in other areas of the digital industry
- 27% of employees don't have the German citizenship
- the locations for companies in the gaming sector are spread out all over Germany, it's a bit more concentrated in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne though
- data as of May 2021
- "The growth of the sales of German games companies is more slowly than the growth of the overall market."
- international productions have sales of 4.583m while German production only achieve sales of 191m, which is only 4.2% of the overall market
- the market for German game productions is growing, but very slowly and in no real comparison to the growth of international productions
- only in Germany produced mobile games saw growth in the German market (by 1,2%), in Germany produced PC and console games as well as mobile and browser games saw declines of 0,6% and 10,4% respectively
- if you look at this map you can clearly see that Germany produced not a single game which won a sales award in 2020
- Japan led with 9 sales awards, the USA followed with 7, then Canada with 4, France with 2 and Great Britain and Poland both with 1 sales award in 2020
You can find the full presentation with even more information and in-depth analysis here: https://www.game.de/publikationen/jahresreport-2021/
I provided the graphs and charts as visual aids and tried my best to summarize and translate important parts from the associated text passages for you.
This is the first time I'm doing this, so I'm very open to any sort of critisism and feedback!
I hope this data is insightful for you and I'm here for any questions.
