Gamescom: in Cologne, the video game industry is looking for a model

End of exclusivity, blockbusters on the decline … Faced with a growing growth crisis, the video game industry is looking for a new model while Gamescom, one of the main salons in the sector, opens in Cologne (Germany).

After a launch party on Tuesday, presenting the main outings of the end of the year – with the high point the new “Call of Duty – Black Ops 7” – and a day devoted to professionals on Wednesday, the high mass of the video game will host the public from Thursday to Sunday.

Last year, nearly 335,000 visitors surveyed the aisles of the imposing Koelnmesse, where each studio has a stand to test the latest innovations.

Absent in 2024, Nintendo signed his return, haloed by the record launch of the Switch 2, while Xbox (Microsoft) will present his new portable consoles expected before the end of the year.

But Japanese Sony preferred to skip.

The atmosphere promises to be mixed for the 1,500 exhibitors: if all the economic lights are green among the main publishers, the waves of layoffs continue.

Microsoft announced in early July to reduce its workforce by nearly 9,000 employees, leading to the departure of hundreds of employees from its studios like King (“Candy Crush”) and the cancellation of games (“Perfect Dark”, “Everwild” …).

After splendid years linked to confinements, “the industry is consolidating” and “to become more profitable, these companies are often content to reduce their workforce,” Rhys Elliott, expert in Alinea Analytics, to AFP.

According to the Game Industry Layoffs site, nearly 30,000 employees in the sector have lost their jobs since the beginning of 2023, including more than 4,000 this year.

In a rather stable global market (estimated at 188.9 billion dollars in 2025 according to Newzoo) and where the number of titles available continues to grow, playing time just like the number of players stagnate.

Faced with the giants “Fortnite” and “Roblox”, frequented each month by several hundred millions of players, “everyone fights for an increasingly small part of the cake,” said Mat Piscatella, expert at Circana.

Holding in console sales, Xbox, the world’s leading game publisher, recently made a change in a winning strategy by distributing certain titles more widely exclusive to its platform.

“Microsoft games are very successful on PlayStation,” says Mat Piscatella. His eternal rival Sony “also generates a lot of money by selling these games in his online store”, so “everyone is a winner,” he said.

A movement followed to a certain extent by PlayStation which, in addition to carrying its exclusives on PC for several years, makes available for the first time its game “Helldivers 2” on the Microsoft console.

The stakes are high, because the exponential cost of the superproductions, which is now in hundreds of millions of euros, jeopardizes the studios in the event of failure.

Conversely, titles with tightened budgets have created surprise as the French “Clear Dark: Expedition 33”, with nearly 4 million copies sold.

“The whole industry rushes towards this model,” notes Christopher Dring, founder of the specialized site The Game Business. It proves “that it is not necessary to spend astronomical sums to create a high quality game likely to please a large audience”.

But “for a success like Clearthere are ten games that cannot find their audiences, “says Piscatella Mat, pointing to” the hyper competitiveness “of a sector in which funding is always difficult to take down for smaller studios.

However, blockbusters have not said their last word.

Expected on May 26, 2026, the “Grand Theft Auto VI” superproduction (GTA VI) of Rockstar Games is on the track to become the largest launch of an entertainment product of all time.