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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

"The German games market once again grew significantly overall in 2023: sales of games, games hardware and gaming online services rose by 6 per cent to around 9.97 billion euros. This is a significant increase after sales had only risen by 1 per cent in the previous year. The biggest growth drivers include games consoles and their accessories as well as in-game and in-app purchases. Despite the large number of top-class titles, which increased sales of games purchases by 4 per cent, the number of games sold fell by 8 per cent at the same time. There were also significant declines in some cases for gaming PCs and laptops. The data on the German games market is based on surveys conducted by the consumer panel services GfK and data.ai."

Full report - https://www.game.de/en/german-games-market-in-2023-strong-development-in-turbulent-times/

 

[Kupfer]

"Revenue from online gaming serverices remains at previous years's level"
-1% (7 million €) actually - which is a good thing. Hopefully this is not an abnormality but a sign of a trend.
I hope the market is saturated and that people will finally get fed up with buying nonsense for every service game.

 

[poppabk]

"Revenue from online gaming serverices remains at previous years's level"
-1% (7 million €) actually - which is a good thing. Hopefully this is not an abnormality but a sign of a trend.
I hope the market is saturated and that people will finally get fed up with buying nonsense for every service game.

Err that was subscription services - in game purchases and battlepasses were up 6% and were 4 times the revenue for actual game purchases.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

After such an increase from 2021 to 2022 that's a surprise peak out of the blue.

That explains why companies are moving away from them or at least finding ways to bring more people to said subscriptions.

 

[West Texas CEO]

I know..

 

[Kupfer]

Err that was subscription services - in game purchases and battlepasses were up 6% and were 4 times the revenue for actual game purchases.

Oh, that's on me. I must have overlooked that. But I also see fewer subscriptions as a good development.

 

[Fafalada]

Is it just me or is this excluding mobile completely?
That's like half of the market-spend missing if we go by other territories.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Is it just me or is this excluding mobile completely?
That's like half of the market-spend missing if we go by other territories.

They don't make it clear in the report, but I think they include it in the 'In-game and in-app purchases' category. Usually in-app purchases (e.g. IAPs) refers to mobile game mtx. I could be wrong though...

 

[Unknown?]

Germany used to be PC land, now it's more of a mix. Good to see.

 

[Oberstein]

And yet Germany is still lagging behind when it comes to game development and big studios...

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Germany used to be PC land, now it's more of a mix. Good to see.

This is why I feel like the attacks on console gaming are shortsighted. The market is always in flux.

Gen Z might not be super into consoles at the moment, but just a single game can change all of that.

What is this generation's Pokemon, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, Minecraft? I don't know, but interests and expectations can change pretty quickly.

I contend that you're never going to get a true console like experience on a cell phone and that PC gaming despite cheap games has a serious barrier of entry and all it takes is one or two exclusives like GTA6 not being on PC to push someone back to consoles who doesn't want to wait a year+

 

[Panajev2001a]

Is it just me or is this excluding mobile completely?
That's like half of the market-spend missing if we go by other territories.

It is an interesting news that consoles have picked up the slack that… PC gaming hardware lost…

“There were also significant declines in some cases for gaming PCs and laptops.”

 

[Spyxos]

“There were also significant declines in some cases for gaming PCs and laptops.”

I recently upgraded my pc and the pc stores that were normally full of people seemed very empty.

 

[lh032]

hmm interesting, thought pc gaming is growing?

 

[ByWatterson]

Your move, Mat.

 

[yazenov]

Your move, Mat.

US = World

 

[jm89]

Same thing happened in the french market in 2023, consoles up(driven by ps5) and pc down.

 

[mckmas8808]

This is why I feel like the attacks on console gaming are shortsighted. The market is always in flux.

Gen Z might not be super into consoles at the moment, but just a single game can change all of that.

What is this generation's Pokemon, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, Minecraft? I don't know, but interests and expectations can change pretty quickly.

I contend that you're never going to get a true console like experience on a cell phone and that PC gaming despite cheap games has a serious barrier of entry and all it takes is one or two exclusives like GTA6 not being on PC to push someone back to consoles who doesn't want to wait a year+

100% THIS! Michael Pachter and his ilk just don't under this or they are paid to not repeat the truth.

 

[dotnotbot]

This is why I feel like the attacks on console gaming are shortsighted. The market is always in flux.

Gen Z might not be super into consoles at the moment, but just a single game can change all of that.

What is this generation's Pokemon, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, Minecraft? I don't know, but interests and expectations can change pretty quickly.

I contend that you're never going to get a true console like experience on a cell phone and that PC gaming despite cheap games has a serious barrier of entry and all it takes is one or two exclusives like GTA6 not being on PC to push someone back to consoles who doesn't want to wait a year+

GTA 6 is just around the corner and it's console first release, there's also PS5 Pro and rumors of some kind of Nextbox coming soon. 2025 will be huge for consoles.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

And yet Germany is still lagging behind when it comes to game development and big studios...

If you look at how German politics have crippled and undermined the flourishing of a potential film industry you'll understand why we don't produce any meaningful games.

 

[hlm666]

Germany used to be PC land, now it's more of a mix. Good to see.

Still doing ok when you look at pc accessories and then realise they include gpus in that segment. Has anyone ever considered their gpu an accessory?

 

[poppabk]

Still doing ok when you look at pc accessories and then realise they include gpus in that segment. Has anyone ever considered their gpu an accessory?

Well you have to include it somewhere. It's actually good to see that the component market is a lot bigger than pre-builts.

 

[mayham2199]

This is why I feel like the attacks on console gaming are shortsighted. The market is always in flux.

Gen Z might not be super into consoles at the moment, but just a single game can change all of that.

What is this generation's Pokemon, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, Minecraft? I don't know, but interests and expectations can change pretty quickly.

I contend that you're never going to get a true console like experience on a cell phone and that PC gaming despite cheap games has a serious barrier of entry and all it takes is one or two exclusives like GTA6 not being on PC to push someone back to consoles who doesn't want to wait a year+

Not just a single game but just life changes in general. I used to be a PC gamer as well and then switched to consoles. Hell I got into IT because of PC gaming and still left it behind.

 

[poppabk]

Gen Z might not be super into consoles at the moment,.....
I contend that you're never going to get a true console like experience on a cell phone.

That's the point, they don't care about a true console like experience.

 

[nowhat]

If you look at how German politics have crippled and undermined the flourishing of a potential film industry you'll understand why we don't produce any meaningful games.

Nah, it's just that you never had a great demoscene there. From a Finnish POV, Housemarque and Remedy (especially the former) have very much their roots in the "scene".

 

[hlm666]

Well you have to include it somewhere. It's actually good to see that the component market is a lot bigger than pre-builts.

Fair point, renaming the segment to pc hardware would fix my bitching though

 

[LazyParrot]

Nah, it's just that you never had a great demoscene there. From a Finnish POV, Housemarque and Remedy (especially the former) have very much their roots in the "scene".

Are there any stats on this? I always thought Germany had a fairly large and active demo scene with plenty of events (including Breakpoint, which was AFAIK the world's largest).

In any case, whether or not Germany had much of a demo scene has to be somewhere near the bottom on the list of reasons why the country doesn't have a ton of game developers.

The truth is that compared to other major European countries, particularly the UK and France, Germany just doesn't offer people any real incentives (in terms taxes or otherwise) for opening a studio, and that's probably at least partly intentional. The prevailing view among German politicians (particularly older ones, i.e. most of them) is that games are at best a waste of time and at worst actively harmful to society. Whatever support and grants there are gets wasted on educational software and a small number of larger studios like Piranha Bytes and Daedalic that have gotten used to relying on these handouts and end up releasing trash as a result of their complacency.

 

[Hudo]

Nah, it's just that you never had a great demoscene there.

That's not true. Especially when it came to the Amiga (and arguably the C64).

 

[Felessan]

Nah, it's just that you never had a great demoscene there. From a Finnish POV, Housemarque and Remedy (especially the former) have very much their roots in the "scene".

Crytek?

 

[Panajev2001a]

100% THIS! Michael Pachter and his ilk just don't under this or they are paid to not repeat the truth.

There is a lot of industry buddies wish something were to be real that being on message and repeating it is thought to help… maybe it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy they hope .

 

[mayham2199]

That's the point, they don't care about a true console like experience.

They don't care right now. Thinking they will never care is the flaw with all these "analyst". Lets also remember these are also the same people who over hired because they couldn't understand that the explosion during covid would be temporary.

Yet here we are expecting them to be able to predict the gaming trends of a generation of children for the next 15+ years.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

It is an interesting news that consoles have picked up the slack that… PC gaming hardware lost…

“There were also significant declines in some cases for gaming PCs and laptops.”

Not surprising given the price of PC hardware nowadays. In this current economy, folks are not spending multiple thousands of euros for a GPU, no matter what NVidia is smoking.

 

[hyperbertha]

And yet Germany is still lagging behind when it comes to game development and big studios...

Likely because you can't crunch workers to death in Germany.

 

[DragonNCM]

Wonder what are numbers for Xbox & Game pass from this list

 

[Denton]

Germany is such a disappointing country on so many levels.

 

[Self_Destructive]

LMFAO... I guess nobody saw this...

Hardware sales deviate from the previous figures due to fundamentally changing the categorization of gaming PCs and laptops

 

[poppabk]

They don't care right now. Thinking they will never care is the flaw with all these "analyst". Lets also remember these are also the same people who over hired because they couldn't understand that the explosion during covid would be temporary.

Yet here we are expecting them to be able to predict the gaming trends of a generation of children for the next 15+ years.

Oh they understood that the covid explosion was likely only temporary. They hire for the current conditions otherwise the competition will suck up the talent pool along with some of their employees and if things become the new norm they are screwed. If things go back to normal they just have to let some people go.

 

[jm89]

LMFAO... I guess nobody saw this...

Hardware sales deviate from the previous figures due to fundamentally changing the categorization of gaming PCs and laptops

Well if their previous categorization isn't something that was truly reflective of what they were trying to convey for pc gaming market(e.g. overinflating numbers due to flawed categorization) then it makes sense they would revise it

 

[Self_Destructive]

Well if their previous categorization isn't something that was truly reflective of what they were trying to convey for pc gaming market(e.g. overinflating numbers due to flawed categorization) then it makes sense they would revise it

And thus the comparison goes out the window

 

[jm89]

And thus the comparison goes out the window

I dont think so. If they've made a revision that they think more accurately reflects pc gaming then it maybe more accurate then what they had in the past.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

LMFAO... I guess nobody saw this...

Hardware sales deviate from the previous figures due to fundamentally changing the categorization of gaming PCs and laptops

Mate, Mate, Mate...

It's still apples to apples since they went back and revised the past figures, else the comparison would have been indeed a bit silly.

jm89 for awareness.

 

[poppabk]

And thus the comparison goes out the window

No they back calculated the previous years for this report. Still checking this report versus the 2021 report, for 2021 everything is the same except 340 million euros of laptop/desktop sales were removed. So they made a big change to how they were calculating this.

 

[Self_Destructive]

Mate, Mate, Mate...

No shit... but what's the definition now? What counted before, and doesn't count now... or what didn't count before and counts now?

It would be nice to know what they consider "gaming PCs and Laptops specifically"... and it would be nice to know exactly.. so they don't go fucking around with it on a whim.

 

[Self_Destructive]

No they back calculated the previous years for this report. Still checking this report versus the 2021 report, for 2021 everything is the same except 340 million euros of laptop/desktop sales were removed. So they made a big change to how they were calculating this.

Indeed... now what change? Why? Is it only devices which are marketed specifically as "gaming".. and perhaps they counted certain other PC/Laptops which weren't before?

Why did they feel the change necessary?

My point is that sure... the chart they posted may be accurate when comparing the 3 years... but who is to say that all the PCs/Laptops out there which they counted before.. but don't count now... aren't being used for gaming?

 

[Darkmakaimura]

We (and of course, Germany) needs a big budget Das Schwarze Auge game.