The Top 5 German Gaming Outlets Every Game Developer Should Know

Picture by Javier Martinez via Unsplash

The German games market is growing and thriving, even if its own national games funding is lagging behind. In fact, Germany is the second-largest games market in Europe after Russia, generating sales of around €3.7 billion as in the first half of 2020, according to the German Games Industry Association. That's 27 percent growth compared to 2019.  Additionally, the annual Gamescom is the world's largest games convention happening in Cologne - or was, at least, before the pandemic.

As much as the games market has grown in recent years, the media landscape for it has tended to diminish while still evolving. Out of a sea of different gaming magazines only a handful have made it, as it happend with pretty much all print media. But many new and different mediums to reach the public have emerged. On top of that, even the national newspapers now regularly write about the phenomenon of games. This sounds like all good news for the gaming community, but it brings its own challenges. But don't worry, we won't leave you hanging. While we can't provide you with a hot walkthrough, we’ve collected a few tips and tricks on how to make it from the first level to the final boss.

Here is our list of the top 5 gaming outlets that every game developer should know:

GameStar

GameStar is a monthly PC computer game magazine in Germany and has garnered 4.94 million unique users and almost 27.87 million monthly visits, making it by far the highest selling German language magazine focused on PC gaming. It also hosts the largest gaming related portal GSPB (GameStar Pinboard) on the German-speaking internet, and can be also found on the list of the 150 biggest forums worldwide. Just like the magazine the portal is centered on PC gaming and publishes news, reviews, and tests for PC games and PC gaming related topics. On YouTube, GameStar has its own channel with over 1.31 million subscribers. more than 946 million views (as of Feb. 2021), and has its own very entertaining GameStar podcast.

Gamesworld.de aka the Gamesworld Network

The Gamesworld network includes the online portals gamesworld.de, 4Players, PC Games, buffed, Games Aktuell, gamezone.de and videogameszone.de, and has 10 million monthly unique users. It is also part of the COMPUTEC MEDIA publishing powerhouse, which is one of the leading media companies in the gaming segment and the organizer of prestigious business game events such as QuoVadis and, most notably, the German Developer Innovation Prize.

COMPUTEC MEDIA is a subsidiary of Marquard Media International AG, Baar/Switzerland. 

Spieletipps.de & Gamona.de

Spieletipps is a web portal dedicated to tips, cheats, news, and tests of games on various platforms. In 2019, the editorial team of Gamona.de moved to spieletipps.de, as both sites already had been collaborating for years.  It’s a good addition since the editorial staff of Gamona.de was mainly concerned with reporting, tests, reviews, media collections, and solution guides for computer games. With a special interest in MMOs and e-sports they now offer a great editorial profile. 

It's one of the games portals with the widest reach, with a whopping 7.59 million visits and 2 million unique users monthly in the DACH region.

Giga.de

GIGA is both a German online community and a magazine and has its roots in television. Most gamers will remember the golden days of GIGA TV which ran on NBC Europe, later on its own channel GIGA as well as on “Das Vierte”. A special feature was that viewers could participate in the show via internet, thus enabling a high degree of interactivity much like Twitch.tv today. The Internet portal giga.de is owned by the advertising agency Ströer Media (which also owns Spieletipps.de). The focus is mainly on computer and video games, but various software and gaming related technologies are also tested in their tech laboratory. GIGA publishes daily background articles on different topics, readers can participate with votes and comments. Most of the news reports come as "user news" from the users themselves, and with 12.98 million unique users, it has quite the reach. 

Gameswelt.de

Not to be confused with Gamesworld, Gameswelt.de is present in the complete DACH-region since the summer of 2008 with the domains gameswelt.at and gameswelt.ch as independent portals, which largely draw on content from the parent site. Gameswelt focuses on games for PCs and the latest console generations. The editorial team is covering game tests, previews, daily news, video reports, and national events in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. The site has over 5 million monthly visits. Since November 10, 2014, Gameswelt has also been operating a successful channel on the streaming service Twitch (twitch.tv/gameswelt / 27.4k follower). Its program includes news, live gaming and discussions about current entertainment topics. Gameswelt is also known for its excellent video format called “Insert Coin”. The web show has no fixed topics, but instead offers entertaining game tests, previews, or interviews with developers and discussions about current topics from the gaming industry with Gameswelt editors.

Summary

Of course, the big outlets are important and you should never underestimate the magic of being on the front cover of GameStar and such likes. But still, when planning a PR campaign for games the game itself is the most important thing! Long before the game is even playable, you have to find a language that properly communicates the game's features and a schedule that matches the development plan. We’ll dig deeper - so stay tuned for our “How to do PR for Games” guide in the future.