The positive trend in the number of employees has also continued, as the previous year’s 8 per cent growth has been followed up by approximately 3 per cent growth in the core market. This brings the total number of people employed in the development and marketing of games in Germany to 11,242. Differences in the growth rates underscore the degree to which the establishment of numerous smaller companies is driving the current growth trend in the German games industry: the number of employees has increased by about 12 per cent over the past two years, whilst the number of games companies grew by 26 per cent during this same time span. Following a decline in the previous year, the games industry’s extended labour market also recovered somewhat: the estimated number of people employed here increased by nearly 6 per cent to 17,048. This extended labour market includes people employed by service providers, retailers, educational establishments, the media and the public sector in connection with the games industry. In total, the German games industry currently secures more than 28,000 jobs.

However, a look at current employment figures also indicates how much potential for growth Germany still offers. Canada, for instance, has only half the population of Germany and has been providing significant funding to its domestic games industry for several years – the Canadian games industry employs about 32,300 people, or nearly three times as many as the sector in Germany². If these numbers are extrapolated to apply to Germany, they indicate up to 60,000 potential jobs in the core labour market of the German games industry. Likewise, the United Kingdom, which has approximately 15 million fewer residents than Germany, has nearly twice as many people (about 20,870) working in computer and video game development and distribution.

Despite these positive developments in the number of games companies and employees in the industry in Germany, the country remains less competitive as a location for the games industry in relative terms. On the whole, the German games industry lags behind in international competitiveness; games companies rate it as rather poor. 56 per cent of companies say that Germany’s global competitiveness is ‘rather poor’, and 14 per cent even rate it as ‘poor’. 31 per cent considered it ‘rather good’. None of the companies surveyed for game’s industry barometer 2021 rated the German games industry’s competitiveness as ‘very good’.

The most positively rated aspect of the current situation was games funding. Here, it can be seen that the current federal government’s efforts are beginning to pay off now that the Germany-wide funding scheme providing more than 50 million euros per year has launched. Training for young professionals was also rated as rather good overall. A contributing factor here is that the number of study programmes in the field of games has increased at both public and private universities in recent years. The games industry in Germany sees digital education and internet infrastructure as the areas where the country needs to improve most.