Packed exhibition halls in Cologne are a given at Gamescom as of late. Individuals’s leisure habits in Germany have modified markedly over the previous ten years and develop into more and more digital.
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In the present day, 33 p.c of respondents within the newest so-called “Leisure Monitor” say they play video video games no less than as soon as per week. Solely smartphone actions and listening to music have seen even stronger progress.
€9.4 billion in gross sales, EU commissioner and German president drop in
This 12 months’s Gamescom, which was anticipated to draw greater than 350,000 guests, is being held beneath the slogan “Video games whet the urge for food for the long run.” Henna Virkkunen, vice-president of the European Fee accountable for digital applied sciences, can be coming to Cologne to speak in regards to the European Union’s technique on video games. The EU commissioner will meet Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil, Analysis Minister Dorothee Bar and North Rhine-Westphalia state premier Hendrik Wust.
In the present day, Frank-Walter Steinmeier will develop into the primary German president ever to go to Gamescom, the place he’ll open the Gamescom congress.
In line with the 2026 annual report on Germany’s video games business, income from video games, video games {hardware} and on-line gaming providers in Germany reached round €9.4 billion in 2025. That represents progress of 4 p.c in contrast with the earlier 12 months. This makes Germany the most important video games market in Europe and the fifth-largest worldwide.
Trade representatives in Germany are correspondingly assured: “Because the world’s greatest video games occasion, Gamescom is as soon as once more making one factor abundantly clear this 12 months: we have to make much better use of the distinctive potential of video games and their cultural, financial and technological energy. It have to be Germany’s and Europe’s ambition to play a number one function as a manufacturing hub for video games,” stated Sport managing director Felix Falk forward of the commerce truthful.
“To realize that, we’d like extra ambition, dependable political framework situations, proportionate regulation, and to faucet way more into the distinctive potential of video games for our society.”
Due to AI: chips have gotten dearer, and so are gaming units
But within the first half of 2026, business income fell by 3 p.c to €4.2 billion, primarily as a result of {hardware} gross sales dropped by 8 p.c. Nearly all consoles, resembling Nintendo’s Change, Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation, have develop into dearer in latest months due to rising costs for reminiscence and exhausting drives. Europe is now banking on build up its personal chip manufacturing in an effort to develop into much less depending on China.
On the opening occasion in Cologne, Canadian online game knowledgeable and host Geoff Keighley described the modifications within the business as “thrilling on the one hand and alarming on the opposite”. He stated information centres for synthetic intelligence (AI) wanted enormous numbers of chips, which had squeezed provide and pushed up the price of gaming know-how.
New releases at Gamescom embrace motion titles resembling “Nodus Fall”, wherein the hero fights dragons, “Rainbow Six: Techniques” that includes the army technique of an elite soldier, one other instalment in Russian bestselling creator Dmitry Glukhovsky’s sport sequence, “Metro 2039”, in addition to the fantasy epic “Sport of Thrones: Struggle for Westeros”.
One in every of Germany’s best-known gaming corporations is Giants Software program. The model with the cow on the quilt is now celebrating 5 million copies offered of “Farming Simulator 25”, a farming simulation sport launched on the finish of 2024. At Gamescom, Giants Software program is presenting the interactive premiere of “Farming Simulator 25: Beans & Alpacas”, which is due out in October.