Video and computer games: from first-person shooters to popular sports

After a two-year Corona break, the Gamescom trade fair is all about computer games again. They have long since arrived in the middle of society. How has the pandemic changed the industry?

It’s back: After two years in which Gamescom had to take place purely digitally due to Corona, around 1100 exhibitors are again under one roof in Cologne this year. “Now it’s finally possible again, and we’re celebrating the game culture here in Cologne, that’s a good feeling,” says Felix Falk from the Game Association.

Visitors to the fair should be interested in one thing above all: play. Because developers and publishers traditionally bring games to the fair that will soon be released on the market. But if you want to play the new games at the fair before they go on sale, you have to be patient. In the past, you sometimes had to wait for hours at particularly sought-after stands.

In the record year 2019, around 370,000 visitors came to the fair. “The quality of stay has suffered as a result,” says Gerhard Böse, head of the trade fair in Cologne. This year there are only a maximum of 65,000 tickets for each of the four visitor days. Those who have a ticket should be happy, because the waiting time to play particularly popular games will be shorter.

Big novelties and innovations are missing

However, one looks in vain for innovations or novelties from the major manufacturers at Gamescom this year. Well-known names like Nintendo or Sony have canceled their participation. On the one hand, they have reached their customers so well during the pandemic and are not dependent on the trade fair, on the other hand, they simply lack innovations that they could present.

Corona has also left its mark on the developer industry. The development of new games has been delayed by the big companies because of the pandemic. But you can see more and more booths of small and new game developers at Gamescom. There have never been as many as this year. Most of them come from Asia.

Gaming boom due to pandemic

The future also looks good for the new providers, because the market is growing. During the corona pandemic, computers and video games became even more popular in Germany. Video games were a welcome change for all ages in a time when you had to be at home a lot.

In the first half of this year, the industry’s turnover grew by another two percent and amounted to 4.5 billion euros. “The market is open to everything, our gamer class is very diverse. Classic consoles are served as well as PC gaming and mobile gaming,” says Ralf Wirsing from games manufacturer Ubisoft. According to the Association of the German Games Industry, 58 percent of people between the ages of six and 69 in Germany play computer and video games. Around half are women.

Gamers are getting older, smartphones are becoming more popular

Almost a third of gamers in Germany are over 50. This means that the so-called “silver gamers”, gamers between 50 and 69, are actually the largest group of all German gamers, far ahead of teenagers and young adults. And gamers are getting older: in 2014 their average age in Germany was 31 years. The average gamer is now 37.4 years old and most of them play on mobile.

The smartphone has been the most popular gaming device in Germany for years. Because the technology is getting better and the range of games is getting bigger, the smartphone is constantly expanding its lead as the most popular gaming platform. In 2020, almost 23 million people in Germany were already playing on their cell phones. For comparison: classic game consoles such as Playstation or X-Box used only 17 million players in the same year.

No solo entertainment

Gaming has long since arrived in the middle of society. The typical image of the nerd sitting alone in a messy room playing first-person shooters in the semi-darkness couldn’t be further from the current reality.

The three most successful games for PC and consoles in Germany are FIFA, Animal Crossing and Mario Kart: A football game, a life simulation in which players move to a city inhabited by animals and interact with them there, and a racing simulator with characters from the game manufacturer Nintendo such as Mario or Luigi. All of them can be played alone, but are much more fun with two or more players. That’s why they’re so successful.