Smartphones Are the Most Popular Gaming Platform in Germany, PCs Are on the Rise Again
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In Germany, the most commonly used gaming platform are Smartphones, but PCs are regaining players. Despite a slight decline, consoles are the second most popular platform. These are the results of a survey conducted by the game industry association. 18.3 million gamers play on two or more platforms.
22.7 million people in Germany used their smartphones to play games in 2023. This means that mobile phones remain the most popular video game platform in Germany. The number of people playing games on smartphones has not changed much compared to the previous year. Around ten million people played games on tablets. The overlap between smartphone and tablet gamers is huge: a total of 24.6 million people play mobile games on a smartphone, a tablet or both. These are the figures published by game - The German Games Industry Association, based on data collected by market research company CPS GfK.
For the first time since 2019, the PC was able to reverse its decline in the number of players. In 2023, 13.5 million people played games on a PC, around 600,000 more than in 2019. The number of PC players had fallen from 16.3 million in 2019 to 12.9 million in 2022. Consoles are still the second most popular gaming platform, with 18.7 million players. After the sharp increase in the number of console players over the last four years (from 15.9 to 18.9 million), the number of console gamers fall by 200,000 in 2023. Last but not least: The majority of video game players in Germany, 18.3 million, play games on more than one platform.
"The types of platforms video game players use are as diverse as the games they play and the community they are part of," comments Felix Falk, Managing Director of game - The German Games Industry Association. "Smartphones, as a particularly accessible platform, remain as popular as ever, and interest in PCs is growing again, as well. But the majority of players no longer limit themselves to a single platform, and the lines between the individual platforms are increasingly blurred. This development is evident in trends like cross-platform play, which is extremely common these days, as well as the consistent growth in cloud gaming services that make it possible to play PC and console games on mobile devices."
The market data is based on statistics compiled by Consumer Panel Services GfK and data.ai. These include an ongoing survey of 25,000 consumers, representative of the German population as a whole, on their video game purchasing and usage habits, as well as a retail panel.
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