German Games Industry: Economically More Optimistic, but Disappointed by Politics

The German games industry is not optimistic about 2025, but the latest game survey indicates a slightly more positive outlook among its members. However, there was a great deal of shaking of heads in the direction of politics.

The bad news in the international games industry, but also from Germany, has not led to a fundamental improvement in the mood in the German games industry. This is the result of the latest industry barometer, which the game association has now published. 45 percent of those surveyed expect the industry to develop worse in 2025, only 17 percent expect a better economic development. Compared to the previous year, however, the data is better: at that time, 54 percent expected the economy to perform worse and only 12 percent expected it to improve.

It is interesting to note that the game member companies are significantly more optimistic when it comes to the economic prospects of their own company rather than the market as a whole. Here, 52 per cent expect a positive development and only 15 per cent a negative one.

The respondents did not have a good word to say about the games policy. Only eleven percent rate it as good. Last year, the figure was 33 percent. And 64 percent rate it as poor, almost twice as many as in the previous year, when only 36 percent of the game members surveyed were dissatisfied with the games policy.

"Despite the economically and politically challenging times, German games companies are looking ahead to the election year 2025 with cautious optimism but also with clear expectations. The fundamental business outlook seems to have bottomed out, while at the same time the approval rating of the federal government has plummeted further. This is a clear signal for the incoming federal government to finally create reliable and internationally comparable framework conditions for games companies in Germany as a business location. Above all, the introduction of tax incentives for games, which have long been a proven standard at leading games locations, is crucial for this. These should finally raise companies in Germany to a competitive level as well. Only in this way can the potential of the future games market be realized in Germany as well," says Felix Falk, Managing Director of game – the German Games Industry Association.

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