The German video game market earned a record €8.5 billion in 2020
The German gaming market continues to grow rapidly. Last year, residents of the country spent €8.5 billion on games for the first time. The reason is obvious — self-isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sales of microtransactions and various online services grew the most against the background of lockdown.
The report on the local market was prepared by the German Gaming Industry Association (Game) based on App Annie and GfK data.
Basic data:
- in 2020, the turnover of the German gaming market increased by 32% compared to 2019 (€6.4 billion);
- most of the revenue came from the sale of consoles, PCs, peripherals and other hardware — €3.2 billion. Growth by 26% in annual terms;
- the Germans spent a little less on microtransactions in games — € 3.2 billion (the difference with iron is only € 3 million). But this segment jumped by 44 in a year%;
- another fast-growing segment was online gaming services, including cloud services. In 2020, their revenue increased by 50%, generating €692 million in revenue;
- Also, the Germans were actively interested in subscriptions to individual games, such as World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. Gamers spent €163 million on them. This is 44% more than in 2019;
- but the full purchase of games from the residents of Germany took about € 1.1 billion — an increase of 11% compared to the previous year.
Comparison of German gaming market revenue by sector in 2019-2020
Felix Falk, Managing Director of Game, noted that the record growth of the German market is largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The extraordinary growth of the gaming market shows how important games were in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” commented Falk. “They brought millions of people together, allowed players to explore new worlds when it was impossible to travel in the real world, supported home schooling and just gave the opportunity to have fun.”
