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Overview of video games in Germany
The Gamescom in Cologne is the world's largest gaming event, with 370,000 visitors and 1,037 exhibitors from 56 countries attending the event in 2018.[1]
Germany has the second-largest video games player base in Europe, with 44.3 million gamers in 2018, after Russia.[2][3][4] Consumers in Germany spent €5.87 billion on video games over the course of 2021, a 3 percent year-on-year increase from 2020.[5] The video game market in Germany grew by 6 percent to €6.2 billion ($6.7 billion) in 2019.[6]
The annual Gamescom in Cologne is the world's largest video game expo by number of attendees.[7]
Home production
Origins
German production of popular video-games began principally on the 16-bit systems such as the CommodoreAmiga and AtariST in the 1980s, although a number of successful titles were also released on the Commodore 64 which dominated the 8-bit computer market in the country at the time. Popular developers of the 16-bit era included Thalion, Factor 5 (who were responsible for developing the entire Turrican series) and Blue Byte. Blue Byte and Factor 5 remain in existence in 2006 and produce titles for Windows PCs.
Modern day
By 2002, German games were heavily tilted toward construction and management simulations, according Der Spiegel's Frank Patalong. He noted that "nowhere else in the world are simulations as successful as here at home. Titles such as The Settlers, Die Völker [and] Anno 1602 have dominated the German sales charts for years".[8] Released in 1998, Anno 1602 by Sunflowers Interactive was Germany's best-selling computer game of all time as of December 2002, with sales of 2.5 million copies worldwide and 1.7 million in the German market.[9] Its sequel, Anno 1503, broke its sales record to become Germany's fastest full-price computer game to reach 500,000 domestic sales.[10] It ultimately sold over one million units in German-speaking countries,[11] and, when combined with its predecessor, reached 4.5 million sales worldwide by October 2006.[12] The titles began the Anno series.
One of the most famed titles to come out of Germany is Far Cry by Frankfurt-based Crytek, who also produced Crysis. Factor 5 had been concentrating on the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron series of video games from 1999 until 2003, and released Lair, an action game for the PlayStation 3, in 2007.
Ascaron produced the Elite homage Darkstar One, and continued to produce the popular Anstoss (lit. 'Kickoff') series of football games, the first two installations of which were released under the title On the Ball in English-speaking countries.
The German Government, as a part of the Gamescom fair, has introduced an investment programme aimed towards the countrywide online games industry, with a purpose to offer assistance of as much as 50% of the cost of development.[13]
Within Germany there is a popular taste for historical trade and warfare simulations, notably exceeding that of many other countries. Some German-developed titles in this genre, such as 1602 A.D. and its sequels, and The Patrician, have also been successful abroad.
First-person shooters have also been traditionally quite popular in recent years, and there has been considerable debate about and censorship of the violent content of many such games. Consequently these games, especially uncut versions, became highly coveted in gaming circles for many years (though the modern Internet and VPNs allow players virtually anywhere to obtain a game from, or play on a server hosted in, virtually any other jurisdiction today).
From 2002 to 2008 the main video game trade fair in Germany was the Games Convention which was held annually in Leipzig, and was highly recognized by the press. Since 2009 it was discontinued, as the Gamescom in Cologne took the place of the major video game trade fair in the world.
All games that are released to the public are required to carry a certificate given by the USK (Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle – Voluntary Monitoring Organisation of Entertainment Software). The compulsory nature of the USK label was a consequence of the 2003 modification of the Jugendschutzgesetz or youth protection law. If the USK has not issued a label, a game may be placed upon the "index" of media harmful to youth kept by the BPjM (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons). This results, at least, in a ban on promoting the game in any way and strict requirements for age checks. As prosecutors are inconsistent on whether reviews are a form of promotion this creates a chilling effect on games journalism for the affected titles. The strict requirements for age checks frequently lead to a game being taken off the market entirely, or only being made available in a cut version even for adults, due to economic considerations by developers/publishers. Independently, courts may also issue confiscation orders against games deemed to be especially egregious, resulting in an outright ban.
The 2003 changes to the Jugendschutzgesetz also announced an intent to extend the restrictions on the depiction of violence in video games, leaving open the possibility of banning any depiction of violence in video games, which was met by widespread outcry from the video game community in Germany. The then in power CDU/SPD coalition government announced an intention to enact this in 2005, but in November 2006 such restrictions were not enacted at that time.[citation needed]
^Envision Entertainment got its staff from shuttered Phenomic Game Development (later: EA Phenomic).
^Gentlymad Studios was acquired by publisher Assemble Entertainment in Oct 2017.[14][15]
^Joymania Entertainment's founders previously worked at Blue Byte Software GmbH. Their new studio was initially named "Ohlmann Peter & Sprys Adam GbR" in 1997-1998. Ex-Joymania Entertainment in 1998-2002.
^Keen Games GmbH & Co. KG is the spiritual successor to Neon Studios with several of its co-founders.
^Mad about Pandas UG's prior firm name 'kunst-stoff' also did co-dev, edutainment, gamification, AR/VR & interactive apps.
^Reakktor Studios is a new revival after Reakktor Media went down in 2012.
^Related Designs Software was renamed Ubisoft Mainz in 2019.
^Games by the sole developer of Siactro were published by Diplodocus Games.
^Coreplay's co-founder Peter Ohlmann previously worked at Blue Byte Software GmbH and early version of Joymania Entertainment.
^NEON Software GmbH (aka. Neon Studios) was bought by JoWood in 2000, but then closed down due to latter's financial difficulties. Different co-founders/shareholders later founded ZEAL GmbH, 49Games GmbH, & Keen Games. One co-founder previously founded Kaiko GmbH.
^Radon Labs' name was founded in 2000 by the staff of TerraTools GmbH as its name closed down.
^Reakktor Media was called Century Interactive in 1991-1997; reakktor.com in 1997-2001.
^Spieleentwicklungskombinat GmbH had an abbreviation as "SEK-Ost".
^Westka was the interactive entertainment arm of German media companies Brainpool TV and VIVA Media.
^Activision Blizzard Deutschland's had many other former names in 1993 to 2008 - brief examples: Sierra Coktel, CUC Software, Cendant Software, HAVAS Interactive, Vivendi Universal. Ceased publishing in 2010.
^Magic Bytes was a 1987 label of former German publisher, micro-partner Software GmbH, based in Gütersloh, Germany, which existed in 1986-1991. Their last published game was in 2000. The firm was revived in 2017 in Orlando, Florida with another office in Bielefeld, Germany.
^NBG EDV was bought by Activision in 1997. Does distribution only since 2011.
^Schwiezer System is parent of Century/Reakktor, Nord XR.
^Activision Deutschland's former name was "Take Us! Marketing & Consulting GmbH" in 1995 to 1997-06. "Take Us!" Was bought by Activision in 1997. Publishing taken over by "Activision Blizzard Deutschland GmbH" in 2008.
^The former names of "phenomedia" were "Art Department Werbeagentur GmbH" in 1993-1999 and "Phenomedia AG" in 1999-2004.
^Most of Rainbow Arts people moved to or formed new companies in the late 1980s/early 1990s (e.g. Blue Byte, Factor 5, Spellbound Entertainment). Rainbow Arts became part of Softgold/Funsoft, then bought out by THQ in 1999.
