Working in the games industry

As a central part of the cultural and creative economy in Germany, the games industry presents an attractive working environment. In combination with related fields such as the retail, media and academic areas, it provides almost 30,000 jobs.
 
Since 2012, Germany’s cultural and creative economy has maintained a workforce of over one million. Only a very small share of these workers is employed in the games industry but the strong upswing in Germany as a games location continues – numerous companies have once again (status of 2023) been founded in the German game industry. In the space of a year, the number of companies that develop and market games has risen to 908, equating to a year-on-year increase of 15.5 per cent (basis of data from gamesmap.de in collaboration with Goldmedia). The majority of these are companies involved in the development of games – 411 of the game companies act both as game developers and publishers, while a further 450 engage exclusively in game development. There are 47 game companies that specialise exclusively in marketing computer and video games. The number of game companies in Germany has therefore increased by around 46 per cent since 2020.

The trend among employees in the German games industry also developed positively. The number of employees working for development studios and publishers rose to 11,992, which is almost 7 per cent more than in 2022. The difference in the speed of this growth trend between the employee and company figures indicates that many smaller studios are being established; as in the previous two years, the growth rate in new start-ups is significantly higher than that in the number of employees. Together with the extended games labour market, which includes the employees of service providers, retailers, educational establishments, the media and the public sector, the German games industry therefore secures significantly more than 30,000 jobs.