Can Germany level up its gaming industry?

I press X and we're off. The train picks up speed as we pull away from the platform on Hamburg's elevated U-3 rail line. From the driver's compartment, I see the track come at me, curving to the right, then the left. Before long we're pulling into the next platform, the end of the line. We stop and the game prompts me to disembark. I press another key; the compartment door slides open. Time to make my way down the platform, to the driver's compartment at the other end, and get this train back to where we started.  

SubwaySim Hamburg is just one of several simulation games from German game publisher Aerosoft GmbH on display this week at Gamescom 2022. The annual gaming trade fair, hosted in Cologne, in western Germany, is the world's largest event for video and computer games. More than 500 international companies signed up to take part. During the five-day event, thousands of gaming fans and professionals gather for previews of such highly anticipated games as Sonic Frontiers from Sega and Warner Bros.' "Hogwarts Legacy."

A flare for realistic games

Not much of a gamer myself, I'm drawn to the smaller Aerosoft stand, where I can play at being a heavy cargo truck driver, a cop monitoring Germany's notoriously fast autobahn or even a commuter driving through realistic traffic conditions in any major German city. For every kind of bus — city, long-distance, tourist — Aerosoft has a simulation. There's even a football team bus extension, with challenges that include keeping the bus bathroom clean.

I'm intrigued, but also perplexed. Are these hyperrealistic simulations meant for training purposes? Or are they actually supposed to be fun?

Both, an Aerosoft employee tells me. The games help new drivers learn routes and traffic laws, and they also help acquaint people with driving larger vehicles.

But many people just like them. A lot of bus drivers like to play the bus driver game when their shift is over, she says.

"It's very German," she says, laughing.

Germany among top gaming countries

Germans do like to game. Germany is the most important European sales market for digital games and the fifth-strongest worldwide, according to a report from the Digital and Transport Ministry.

But, despite Germany's love for the pastime, the developing and publishing industry at home has remained niche. Though there are nearly 600 game developer studios in Germany, only 7% have more than 25 employees. Overall, only about 5% of all sales generated in Germany are by German companies, according to the ministry's figures.

German gaming companies and associations at this year's Gamescom are hoping that will change. They're here promoting their work and arguing that Germany could be home to the next digital gold rush.

Employees at Zeitland, a game developer based in Ludwigsburg in Baden-Württemberg, walk me through Black Castle, a game they're developing about a journalist (I'm intrigued) on a time-hopping adventure through a spooky castle.

"Fun fact: Germany has the most castles in the whole world," CEO Beren Baumgartner says. "So this is naturally something that we wanted to pick up on in the creative process."

Asked whether German gaming has an identity of its own, Baumgartner's thoughts go first to a sister industry: board games.

"'German board game,' that's a quality seal right there," he says. "But we don't have that so much for digital because we don't get digital right."

Gaming fills a much-needed gap

Poor internet connectivity and a slow uptake of digital tools are common complaints in Germany, where people are particularly concerned about data security.

The issue is also important to Jan-Eric Wörheide, co-managing director of lodomo, a Wuppertal-based app developer that caterd to retirement homes.

On the screen of a tablet, the company's customizable app depicts a multiroom home filled with household objects. Each object can be linked to a digital system or type of content: Clicking on the TV could load the daily news program. Clicking on the desk might open your calendar. The idea is to make it easier for older people to use digital tools all on their own.

Germany's population is aging rapidly; according to government data, the number of people aged 67 or over will rise by 22%from 2020 to 2035. Using digitalization to help fill gaps left by a lack of care workers is an oft-discussed topic in the country.

"Our product is essentially a bridge between seniors and the digital world," Wörheide tells me. "And, logically, the digital world is going to include games."

Germans aren't 'just engineers'

Apps like lodomo highlight how gaming is no longer just for gamers; it's becoming an ever greater part of everyday life. Throughout the day, talks with industry insiders come back to the same pain points digital companies in Germany have complained about for years: difficulties attracting senior talent, who are often found abroad; the red tape involved in securing funding, which is often project based, making it difficult to invest in technology; and, in general, the idea that Germany can't compete in this field.

"We have to get rid of the German engineer," Zeitland's Baumgartner jokes. "We're good engineers, but we're not just engineers. We can be creative as well."

To end the day, I circle back to another simulation. Stepping around yellow crime-scene tape and an orange cone, I'm ushered by a man dressed as a police officer to a row of computers. Soon I'm standing inside a police station, where I try out a few commands.

I immediately lose points for performing an unnecessary body search. The game sends me out to issue parking tickets, but I ignore the prompt and instead climb in a police car, throwing on the siren and flashing lights. I quit the game after I crash trying to leave the parking lot. I've always preferred the train anyway.

Edited by: Hardy Graupner