Cyprus has developed right into a a lot bigger worldwide hub for online game growth and publishing than its dimension would recommend, in line with the Cyprus Video Sport Business Report 2025, offered by the Cyprus Sport Makers Affiliation (CYGMA).
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The report describes an ecosystem of greater than 400 firms, producing round €3.2 billion in annual income from gamers worldwide. It represents a major contribution to the Cypriot financial system and an exceptionally robust worldwide presence, notably in cellular gaming.
The worldwide video games trade: A $263.7bn market
The worldwide video video games market is estimated at $263.7 billion (€228bn) for 2025, marking year-on-year development of round 4%, in line with the report.
Video video games at the moment are the world’s largest leisure trade. Their revenues exceed these of on-demand video, cinema and recorded music mixed, it notes.
The Cypriot trade grew largely on the again of cellular gaming, at exactly the second the smartphone was turning video video games right into a mass, international product.
Cellular overtook consoles round 2015 and by 2018 had already surpassed PC and console mixed. On the similar time, the free-to-play mannequin — free set up, with monetisation constructed into the sport — grew to become dominant.
The report additionally highlights the rising dominance of Asian, and specifically Chinese language, firms in cellular gaming, a shift amongst some builders again in direction of premium PC gaming, and an elevated concentrate on profitability following the layoffs and overexpansion seen throughout the pandemic interval.
The European dimension
The report doesn’t give a single determine for the overall worth of the European video video games market in 2025, akin to the $263.7 billion it offers for the worldwide market.
It does, nonetheless, supply intensive information on Europe’s manufacturing ecosystem, and on Cyprus’s place inside it.
The European trade contains round 6,000 studios and publishers, whereas Cyprus alone has round 415 confirmed gaming firms.
By way of firm numbers, Cyprus accounts for about 7% of the European complete used as a benchmark within the report — an exceptionally excessive share for a rustic of roughly 1 million inhabitants.
Progress has been simply as placing. Between 2019 and 2024, the variety of Cypriot video games firms rose from 169 to 393, a rise of 133%, equal to common annual development of round 18%.
CYGMA additionally ranks Cyprus among the many 10 largest nations in Europe’s video video games trade by income. That is maybe essentially the most important ingredient of the nation’s European standing: it’s not merely a case of excessive per capita efficiency, however a substantive place in Europe’s high 10 in absolute phrases too.
The Cypriot ‘paradox’: A million folks, €3.2bn in income
The report’s central argument is that Cyprus ought to now not be seen as an “rising” vacation spot for sport growth, however as an already established worldwide hub.
In 2025, round 415 online game firms are primarily based in Cyprus, with greater than €3.2 billion in complete revenues. CYGMA’s database contains 431 firms in complete, of which 415 have been cross-checked towards the Registrar of Corporations.
Crucially, this €3.2 billion doesn’t primarily replicate online game consumption by Cypriot gamers.
Fairly the alternative: nearly not one of the trade’s output depends on the home market. The sector is by nature export-oriented — the report describes video games as round 99% exportable — and the small dimension of the home market may by no means maintain an trade of this scale.
Cyprus is subsequently used as a base for the creation, growth, publishing, administration and monetisation of digital merchandise bought to a worldwide viewers.
The report places income per capita at round €3,200, in contrast with €509 in Finland, €51 in Spain and €32 in Serbia. By way of gaming firms per million inhabitants, Cyprus reaches 415, in contrast with 48 in Finland, 17 in Spain and 15 in Serbia.
Cellular gaming: Cyprus’s essential power
A very powerful pillar is cellular. In 2025, Cypriot firms launched 571 new cellular video games, which amassed 615 million downloads, whereas the trade’s complete cellular gaming revenues are estimated at round €1.8 billion.
Cyprus ranks third worldwide in cellular sport downloads, behind solely China and Vietnam, and eleventh worldwide in cellular in-app buy income.
In downloads, it’s forward of the US, France, Israel, Turkey, Singapore, India, South Korea and Japan.
PC and consoles: The second pillar
The Cypriot trade isn’t restricted to cellular. Video games for PC and consoles generate round €1.4 billion a yr.
In 2025, 36 new PC and console video games have been launched, with round 1.5 million copies bought. Of the overall €1.4 billion, round €200 million could be tracked by way of Steam.
Why Cyprus?
The report attributes the expansion of Cyprus’s video video games trade each to the worldwide rise of cellular gaming and to benefits particular to the nation.
The fast development of cellular video games created hundreds of recent firms worldwide, and Cyprus managed to draw a lot of them, largely due to the IP Field, a tax regime providing decrease taxation on earnings derived from mental property similar to software program, code and different parts of a online game.
Beneath the tax system outlined within the report, from 1 January 2026 earnings that qualify for the IP Field could be taxed at an efficient fee of round 3%, since solely 20% of the related earnings are topic to tax.
Corporations may profit from better tax deductions for analysis and growth spending, such because the creation of recent software program, expertise and video games, alongside tax incentives for executives relocating to Cyprus from overseas.
Past tax incentives, Cyprus gives different benefits: EU membership, a authorized system largely primarily based on English legislation, tax agreements with many nations, and a strategic location between Europe, the Center East and Asia.
The report does level to at least one weak point, nonetheless. In contrast to nations similar to Germany and the UK, Cyprus doesn’t but have a well-developed system of state grants particularly for the video video games trade. Whereas the nation stays aggressive on tax and firm formation, there’s nonetheless room to supply extra direct monetary assist to video games firms and creators.
The most important problem: Human capital
Maybe the most important impediment to the subsequent part of development is neither taxation nor funding, however the expertise pool.
Cyprus has 13 universities and nearly 58,000 college students, however comparatively few research disciplines instantly associated to online game creation.
Based on the report, round 290-385 individuals are anticipated to graduate in 2026 from diploma programmes usable within the video games trade, similar to programming and design.
Nonetheless, solely 3-6 graduates are anticipated to come back from diploma programmes particularly targeted on video video games.
The sector may, in line with the report’s estimates, soak up round 100-300 new staff a yr — leaving a considerable hole between firms’ wants and the variety of suitably educated folks obtainable in Cyprus.