German players spent €9.4 billion on games, hardware, and gaming services in 2024, representing a decline of 6% year-on-year.
That’s according to the 2025 annual report by The German Games Industry Association (Game), which noted that the market “experienced a pause in growth” last year.
The German games market
Revenues
Software: €5.5 million, down 6% year-on-year
Hardware: €2.9 million, down 10% year-on-year
Online and subscription services: €965 million, up 12% year-on-year
Software revenues – which include full-game sales, in-game purchases and subscriptions, and add-on content – declined 6% to €5.5 billion in 2024.
The majority of this revenue came from mobile games on smartphones and tablets, which reached €3 billion for the first time last year. Since 2019, the German mobile games market has grown by 63%.
As for subscription services, the report noted that around one quarter of players aged over 16 use one or more, with eight in ten players saying “that they try out new games more often as a result” of using services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus.
Purchases dropped 17% overall to €921 million, which the report suggested was due to there being fewer major titles released last year than compared to 2023.
Looking at spending behaviour, 93% of revenue for mobile games came from in-app purchases. For consoles, 38% of revenue was generated by online gaming services, with over a third coming from the purchase of individual games.
As for PC revenue, 70% was generated by in-game purchases with slightly less than one fifth from the purchase of titles.
Most popular platforms
Smartphone: 22.9 million (up 0.8%)
Console: 20.5 million (up 9.6%)
PC: 13.1 million (down 2.9%)
Tablet: 10.3 million (up 3%)
Looking at hardware, overall revenue decreased by 10% to €2.8 billion. Consoles saw the largest decline at 26% to €807 million year-on-year.
The report noted that this drop was likely due to the current generation of consoles being more available to purchase, compared to the “catch-up effect” that occurred last year following low supply and high demand.
Downloads continued to be the most popular form of purchase for players in Germany, with seven out of ten PC and console purchased digitally. The share of downloads jumped from 60% to 68% last year, which is a new record.
Game noted that 99% of PC games were purchased digitally in 2024, while most console games were bought physically. Overall, physical media accounted for over half of purchases made on consoles.
Best-selling games of 2024:
- EA Sports FC 25 (Electronic Arts)
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (Activision Blizzard)
- Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead Game Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
- Farming Simulator 25 (Giants Software)
- Super Mario Party Jamboree (Nintendo)
- Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero (Bandai Namco Entertainment)
- The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered (Naughty Dog/SIE)
- Dragon’s Dogma 2 (Capcom)
- EA Sports F1 24 (Electronic Arts)
- Star Wars Outlaws (Ubisoft)
Looking at player numbers, 37.5 million people across all age groups play video games in Germany. Players over the age of 60 grew from 6.4 million in 2023 to 7.7 million last year, while eight out of ten people who play games are over 18.
As for gender distribution, 48% of those who play games are women and 52% are men.
The German games industry
Total number of companies: 910 companies, down 4%
Total number of employees: 12,408 employees, down 2%
The report suggested the 4% drop in German companies either developing or publishing games was due “the consolidation of the global games market” and the “unreliable availability of federal funding”.
Of the 910 companies, 454 work solely in game development while 52 are publishers. The largest companies in Germany are Nintendo with 935 employees, Ubisoft with 660, and InnoGames with 350.
The total number of employees also declined by 2% to 12,134 in this year, compared to 12,408 working in 2024. Game suggested current market conditions and “repeated funding application stops” were the reasons for this decrease.
“From the perspective of the German games industry, 2024 can certainly be described as bumpy,” said Game managing director Felix Falk in the report’s opening comments.
“The German games industry [relies] to a large extent on international publishers and partners to realise their projects”
“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.”
Falk continued: “This is especially true when, as in 2024, the absence of long-term games funding in Germany brings cost disadvantages of 30% compared to relevant international locations.”
Earlier this week, Game reported that the German games market had already grown 4% year-on-year in the first six months of 2025 to €4.6 billion.
