European gaming market

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The European Gaming Market

Article Contents

Number of Players and Profitability
Gamer Culture
European Diversity and Localization
Cultural and Linguistic Subtleties

When choosing which regions to conquer with a game, publishers and developers face several questions: Where will the product be in highest demand? Where can the most profit be gained? What obstacles might arise, and is it worth the effort?

If you’re considering entering the European gaming market, here are some statistics to help with your decision.

Number of Players and Profitability

According to Newzoo’s 2023 data, out of 3.381 billion players worldwide, 13% (447 million) are in the European region. Moreover, compared to the year before, the figure for Europe increased by 3.6%.

Number of Players and Profitability

At first glance, Europe may not seem impressive compared to other “competitors”: it lags behind the Middle East and Africa, is only slightly ahead of Latin America, and is far behind the Asia-Pacific region.

However, if you look at profitability by region, the picture becomes more interesting: North America leaps from last to second place, while Europe confidently holds third place (18% or $33.6 billion USD).

Number of Players and Profitability

These numbers show that Europeans are willing to spend money on games. This is due to both the high standard of living in general (European countries regularly score highly in such ratings) and the fact that Europeans have a stable interest in games as a form of entertainment.

Gamer Culture

So, why is Europe the right choice for those looking to conquer new markets? First of all, because this region has a well-established gaming culture.

In particular, the interest in esports has grown in Europe over the past few years: professional tournaments are held in many countries, and the segment is attracting investment. This not only creates new opportunities for developers and publishers but also contributes to the overall growth of the gaming market in the region. It’s also worth noting that despite the evolution of game development in many European countries, there are relatively few publishers in the region. This can be seen as a green light for foreign players in the industry. Additionally, Europe does not have strict legal regulations for foreign games (unlike China, for example).

The state of the Europen game industry and how to unleash it´s full potential

Source: The state of the Europen game industry and how to unleash it´s full potential (eit-culture-creativity.eu)

Another interesting trend in this region is the growing popularity of indie games. Created by small studios or individual developers, these projects often offer unconventional game mechanics and unique experiences. Such developers have a very limited advertising budget (or none at all), yet European players still find out about these games. This suggests that there is a tight-knit gaming community in Europe, and new releases spread by word of mouth.

The high standard of living in Europe implies two things:

People can afford expensive equipment. Not only extra gear like VR headsets, but also main devices, as these days a decent gaming PC or the latest console is a significant investment. The fact that people are willing to make such investments itself indicates a great enthusiasm for gaming. And if you’re going to spend that much money, you’re almost certainly going to play regularly and keep up with new releases.
Almost everyone, young and old, has access to high-speed internet and a new enough smartphone to play any game. Thanks to this, the popularity of multiplayer online games and mobile projects continues to grow. Additionally, PC and console gamers now have the ability to quickly download games from the internet, leading to a shift in audience preferences toward digital distribution. This plays into the hands of developers: through digital platforms like Steam, it’s easy to distribute games far beyond one’s home country.

European Diversity and Localization

So, the European region has piqued your interest, and you’re already considering your next steps. Among your first thoughts might be the following:

Almost everyone in Europe speaks English. Will that be enough for European gamers?
Europeans do indeed have a good command of English. According to ef.com, among the countries with “Very high proficiency”, almost all are European. So you don’t need to bother with localization into native European languages, right?
Actually, no. Most Europeans prefer to play in their native language, as evidenced by the fact that French, Italian, German, and Spanish are among the most popular languages for localization worldwide. Moreover, English proficiency is not high in all European countries — France, for example, has one of the lowest levels of English proficiency in the continent.
There are so many countries in Europe — and so many languages. Which ones to choose for localization?
This is one of the most significant challenges for companies with a limited budget that can’t afford to localize their game into all possible languages. Here again, statistics can help: for example, if a particular country or part of the region favors games in the same genre as yours, it’s probably worth localizing the game into that language (or languages). For example, in Northern Europe, strategy and simulation games are in high demand, while in Southern Europe, sports and racing games are particularly popular. Additionally, you can look at statistics on the demand for languages on Steam or other digital platforms. Finally, all other factors being equal, you can focus on the popular languages mentioned above — French, Italian, German, and Spanish. It’s also important to note that speakers of these languages are used to receiving full localization (including voice acting, not just interface and subtitles), so this is the ideal if the budget allows.

For more details on localization nuances and how to choose a vendor, check out our article.

Cultural and Linguistic Subtleties

Europe has 24 official languages recognized by the European Union, along with many unofficial ones. With such linguistic and cultural diversity, the only way to reach the hearts of European gamers is to overcome the challenges related to the particularities of each language. The right localization company can help resolve these issues of cultural adaptation, but be prepared for some technical aspects (such as support for certain characters) to be handled by developers.

Here are some examples of nuances in common languages:

Regional differences.
- The Canadian variant of French, spoken in Quebec, differs significantly from French in France. For example, a Frenchman would refer to his beloved girlfriend as petite amie, while Quebecers would say blonde, regardless of her hair color. These differences are important to consider, especially if your game contains a lot of slang. In this case, the difference would be so great that a translation for a French audience might seem strange or even offensive to Quebecers (and vice versa).
- The situation is similar when it comes to German. For example, in Austria and Germany, different words may be used for the same thing (such as Tomaten and Kartoffel in Germany, versus Paradeiser and Erdäpfel in Austria). Additionally, the gender and plural form of nouns may differ. Regional variations can even exist within a single country (for example, Northern and Southern Germany).
- With Spanish, the situation is even more complicated. It is spoken not only in Europe but also in Latin America, where each country has its own variations of the language. Due to this abundance, localization for Latin America is often done in a generalized form, avoiding region-specific words and expressions. However, it’s not advisable to offer a game localized in this “pan-Latin American” version to players in Europe — they will react negatively. The reason is the same: the differences are as wide as the ocean separating the two regions. For example, the commonly used verb for “press” (as in pressing a button) would be pulsar in European Spanish, while in Latin American Spanish, it would be oprimir (which for Europeans means “to oppress”).
Formal and informal address. In many European languages — unlike in English — there is a distinction between formal and informal forms of address. Therefore, when translating, a number of factors need to be considered: how formally the player should be addressed, the relationships between characters, their age, social status, and so on. In certain languages, additional nuances may exist.
- In German, the concept of formality is somewhat different from, for example, Russian. In Russian, the formal Вы is a sign of respect and politeness, while the German Sie tends to signal a desire to distance oneself from the interlocutor.
- Spanish takes into account not only formality but also the number of people being addressed:
  
  Informal, singular:
  
  Formal, singular:
  
  Informal, plural:
  
  Formal, plural:
  
  Tú or vos
  
  Usted
  
  Vosotros or vosotras
  
  Ustedes
Sensitive topics. Jokes often appear in games, as in any media, but it’s important to remember that some may be perceived negatively in certain cultures. Problems may also arise if your game touches on subjects that are considered taboo in a particular country.
- For the French-speaking audience, such topics include racism, terrorism, sexism, and police brutality.
- In Germany, games were subject to strict censorship until 2018. Excessive violence, depictions of Nazism, and racism were all grounds for banning a game in the country. While legislative requirements have since been relaxed, topics related to World War II and Nazism should still be avoided to prevent a negative reaction among players.
Special characters.
- In the French language, diacritics are widespread (accents and other symbols: é, è, ê, etc.), as are ligatures (two letters fused into one: œ and æ). Developers must ensure that the game code supports them. The absence of special characters not only creates a bad impression but sometimes distorts the text’s meaning (compare mur — “wall” and mûr — “ripe”).
- In German, umlauts (Ä ä, Ö ö, Ü ü) and the ligature ß are used.
- Italian uses characters like è, à, ò, ì, é, and í.
Formatting.
- In French, certain punctuation marks (colon, semicolon, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks) are separated by spaces. It’s important to ensure that these spaces are non-breaking, otherwise formatting errors may occur. For example, a punctuation mark landing on the next line can visually ruin the text.
- In Spanish, interrogative sentences of phrases are enclosed in ¿ ? (¿Me quieres?).
Length. Compared to English (and even more so to Chinese), phrases translated into European languages tend to be longer.
- Italian, for example, is about 10% longer than English, which shouldn’t cause too many issues during localization.
- However, German is famous for its long words, as new words are commonly formed by combing several words into one. For example, how about Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz? 😊Of course, you’re unlikely to encounter anything this long in gaming texts, but developers should still be prepared for the fact that translations into German will take up a lot of space and may not fit within character limits. The good news is that German is very “tolerant” of Anglicisms, so if a word is too long, it can often be replaced with a more compact English equivalent.
Gender. All the languages mentioned in the examples (German, French, Spanish, and Italian) have grammatical gender. This means that translators need to know the gender of each character: for example, in German, you can’t refer to a female character as Kämpfer (“warrior”)—you would need to use the feminine suffix -in (Kämpferin). Don’t forget to provide this information in the game’s reference materials.

All these and other nuances will be considered if you entrust localization to specialists with deep knowledge of the specific language and culture. At Logrus IT, translations are performed by native speakers, and localized materials go through several stages of quality control. Moreover, our managers take care of the entire process, so you can just sit back and receive a fully localized product.