Berlin After the boom of the first corona years, the growth of the video and computer game industry has slowed down significantly. This is based on figures from the industry association Game and the market researchers GfK and Data.ai out. In the first half of the year, the companies in the industry in Germany generated sales of around 4.55 billion euros, about two percent more than in the same period of the previous year. In the first half of 2021, however, sales increased by 22 percent compared to the same period in 2020.
An important reason for the great growth in recent years has been the pandemic – people spent a lot of time at home and spent a corresponding amount of money on digital entertainment such as games. In the meantime, however, according to Game Managing Director Felix Falk, the long-term effects of the pandemic are becoming more noticeable, such as supply bottlenecks for important game hardware. In addition, there is the general clouding of the economic outlook, which also leaves its mark on the gaming market.
The main growth drivers of recent years have seen falling sales: so-called in-app purchases, for example, generated sales of 1.3 billion euros, seven percent less than a year ago. Sales in the hardware sector also fell, from 1.58 billion to 1.53 billion euros. The industry, on the other hand, recorded an increase in sales for subscription services related to games, for example. Revenues from the purchase of individual games also went up.
On August 23, the video game fair Gamescom starts in Cologne. For the first time since 2019, the industry meeting will take place again with visitors in the Cologne exhibition halls. in 2020 and 2021, the fair was only a purely digital event due to the pandemic.
