Games from Germany: Market Share Remains Stubbornly Low

Key insights

5 takeaways

01
The total market share of German-developed games fell to 6.4% in 2016, down from 7% in 2014 and 6.5% in 2015.
02
German developers’ market share for smartphone and tablet games experienced a significant decline, dropping from 7% in 2015 to 4.2% in 2016.
03
In the PC and console segment, which represents the largest portion of the market, the German-developed share fell from 0.6% to 0.5% in 2016.
04
Browser and online games were the only segment where German developers saw growth, with their market share increasing from 23% to 24%.
05
The BIU (German Games Industry Association) attributes the low market share to non-competitive framework conditions and has called for federal-level development funding similar to models in Canada, France, and Britain.

Summary

The 2017 Annual Report of the Computer and Video Games Industry, published by the German Games Industry Association (BIU), highlights a concerning stagnation in the domestic market share for German-developed games. The primary thesis of the report is that the current framework conditions for game development in Germany are uncompetitive, preventing local developers from benefiting from the broader growth of the games industry.

Data from 2016 reveals that German-developed games captured only 6.4 percent of the total domestic market, a slight decline from 6.5 percent in 2015 and 7 percent in 2014. Performance varied significantly by segment: the mobile market for smartphones and tablets saw a sharp drop in domestic share from 7 percent to 4.2 percent, while the PC and console sector—the industry's largest subsegment—remained at a critically low 0.5 percent. Conversely, the browser and online games sector proved to be the only area of growth, with the domestic market share rising from 23 percent to 24 percent.

The report, which compiles comprehensive market data and analysis of the German games and esports landscape, serves as a call to action for policymakers. The association argues that without the introduction of federal-level development funding—similar to established models in countries like Canada, France, and the United Kingdom—the German games industry will continue to struggle to compete on an international scale. The findings underscore a persistent structural disadvantage that limits the potential of domestic developers despite the overall expansion of the global gaming market.