03.1 Companies and employment figures

The figures for the number of companies and employees in the German games industry also show how challenging the environment has been for games companies recently.

After years of growth, there has now been a decline for the first time. According to the data, the number of companies in Germany that develop and/or publish games has dropped by 4 per cent since last year, to 910. The boom in start-ups in the games sector that was set in motion by the introduction of the federal funding for games in 2020 has now completely subsided. Last year’s figures already indicated a clear slowdown. The decline can be attributed in particular to the consolidation of the global games market as well as the unreliable availability of federal funding. Three times since 2020, there have been months-long suspensions placed on funding applications. Despite the newly registered drop, the number of companies has risen by 46 per cent overall since the initial start of the games funding programme in 2020. Of the 910 present companies, 454 work exclusively in game development and 52 exclusively as publishers. The remaining 404 companies are active in both the development and publishing of games.

The number of employees at games companies in Germany has also declined over the past year. Whereas game developers and publishers employed 12,408 workers in 2024, the figure for 2025 stands at just 12,134 – a drop of 2 per cent. As with the number of companies, the employee numbers had previously shown strong growth since the introduction of the games funding programme at the federal level: a rise of 23 per cent from 2020 to 2024.

The recent decline indicates that the conditions, which afford little plannability, in combination with the repeated funding application stops are impacting the job market. A year ago, there were still more companies with ongoing projects that were internationally competitive thanks to federal funding. Despite the international consolidation wave and the uncertainty around funding for the industry here, this had stabilised Germany’s games sector. The games industry secures a total of over 30,000 jobs in Germany. In addition to jobs in development and publishing, these include, for example, skilled professionals in educational institutions, the media and the public and commercial sectors.