Games

Key figures

In order to map the number of organisations, employees, education, students, players and income in figures, various sources must be used. Since the gaming industry is inherently international, both national and international figures must be considered. Dutch figures are scarce, but are provided via the biennial Games MonitorFor international figures, the monitor from the Game Developers Conference and publications from market researcher Newzoo.

Number of organizations and employees: The Dutch gaming industry comprises approximately 2023 employees and 4.291 companies in 614 (Grinsven et al. 2025). The majority are self-employed and small businesses – the Netherlands has few really big game studios. These companies are mainly located in the Randstad, with a large hub in Amsterdam (Grinsven et al. 2025). Most companies in the industry are involved in developing new games. Of these developers, 36 percent are exclusively applied games – Internationally speaking, the Netherlands has many makers of these types of games. The other developers mainly focus on entertainment games for consumers (Grinsven et al. 2025).

Recognition of games as culture

Games are currently receiving little attention in the national cultural policy – which the industry raised in 2020, among other things, in the media and with a pamphlet for the House of Representatives (Sala et al. 2020, Maessen 2020; see also Schavemaker 2022). The subsidy options for game developers within the Netherlands are therefore quite limited. They are mainly dependent on the Creative Industries Stimulation Fund, in particular on the scheme 'Digital culture'. In the period 2021-2024, the Stimulation Fund provided between 200.000 and 400.000 euros in subsidies to game projects each year (Otterlo 2022a, 2023a, 2024a and 2024b). This is considerably less than the amounts that surrounding countries invest in their national game industries. Almost 80 percent of game developers believe that the Dutch government is not doing enough to support the industry (Grinsven et al. 2025).

The lack of government subsidies in the Dutch context is problematic, especially now that the investment climate has deteriorated after the corona pandemic. Developing a game often takes years of work, which means that a significant investment must first be made before a return can be achieved. In 2021, therefore, the Midgame Fund founded by Dutch game makers. With this, a group of approximately 35 investors is trying to partially close the gap in pre-financing with investments of up to 150.000 euros, in exchange for a limited part of the turnover. The fund uses the proceeds to reinvest in new projects. Since its foundation, the Midgame Fund has invested in eight projects, for a total amount of 600.000 euros (Otterlo 2021c).

Although the role of games within cultural policy is small, their role as a cultural medium is increasing. Games combine cultural forms such as film, literature, music, architecture, design and visual arts, but their interactive possibilities make games more than the sum of their parts. For example, games make it possible to explore digital worlds with complete freedom or to help shape them as a co-creator, and to let the player step directly into the shoes of a main character and make them responsible for choices and their impact. In this way, games provide unique, personal and immersive experiences. Increasingly, these are also personal stories of creators or stories that touch on important social themes.

In addition, games are increasingly becoming part of other cultural domains. There are numerous examples. For example, filmmakers use game technology and increasingly make films and series based on games, games can contribute to the reconstruction of heritage locations, the Reading Coalition started a reading promotion project around game stories, and Museum Belvédère organized an exhibition on game art in the fall of 2021 (Gestel 2020, Handy 2023, Harty 2022, Bibliotheeknetwerk 2021, Museum Belvédère 2021). A broader development is that (large) games are changing into (social) platforms that also offer space for activities other than games – also called the metaverse (Newzoo 2021). These are also cultural activities, such as a digital concert or a tour of a virtually simulated museum (Carpenter 2020, Vergauwen 2021).

If games are seen as culture, it is also important to safeguard them as cultural heritage. This is an urgent theme, because games as heritage are very vulnerable, for example because of the way in which and where they can be archived (Maessen 2023b). There are currently several in the Netherlands private collectionsin the Netherlands, and Dutch games are curated by Sound and VisionTo intensify these efforts, it would be important on the one hand to have a legal mandate for archiving games and to have sufficient budget for this, and on the other hand that the industry also takes care of its own past and donates games to archives.

A (too?) wide range of new games

Just like the film and music industries, the way games are distributed has changed completely in the past decade. Where ten years ago the majority of games were sold on physical media such as DVDs and Blu-rays, now most games are downloaded or streamed via digital stores. By 2024, 95 percent of global game revenue will come from digital distribution (Newzoo 2024b).

The impact of this change cannot be underestimated, because digital distribution significantly expanded the gaming landscape. It opened the market for small studios – so-called indies – to reach a global audience independently of a publisher through digital stores. There, these developers also found increasing room for innovative offerings, artistic experimentation and smaller-scale experiences than games had offered until then. At the same time, more and more programs and tools for developing games became available, making this possible for a growing number of developers.

The impact of these developments is clearly visible in the large supply. For example, more than 2024 new games will appear on Steam – the largest digital store for PC games and the most important distribution channel for Dutch developers – every month in 1.000 (SteamSpy nj). Moreover, new games do not only compete with other new supply. Some games remain popular for years, whether or not because the developer also adds new content for years. The large supply makes it difficult for new games to stand out, which means that developers have to invest more in marketing, publishers are more often taken into account and frequent and large discounts are offered. Although this large supply certainly has disadvantages, overproduction is also characteristic of the creative and cultural industries that are struggling with demand uncertainty. This means that it is uncertain which games will be successful, so it would be better to produce more (as also described by Fürst et al. 2023).

Partly because games from Dutch makers appear in many places, it is difficult to measure how many games they produce per year. This is also methodologically difficult. For example, game makers regularly develop updates for existing titles or release these titles for new systems. Only an overview of new titles therefore gives an underestimate of the actual production. To gain a little more insight into this, the Dutch Game Industry Directory, by game developer Adriaan de Jongh, expanded with, among other things, the possibility to derive statistics from it (Otterlo 2021b). Developers can add their own games to this database, and have been regularly invited to do so since the update. At the moment, the database is not yet complete and in particular applied games underrepresented, but the hope is that the Directory will become increasingly accurate in the future. 

Changing revenue models

The democratization of game development has led to an increasing number of people and companies hoping to make money from making games. The most common revenue model for game developers worldwide is ‘pay to download’ (51 percent) (GDC 2024). Digitalization has also paved the way for new revenue models, including subscription services, microtransactions, and in-game advertising (Ecorys & KEA 2023). 

With subscription services, a user pays a fixed amount per month for access to a large selection of games (such as Apple Arcade or Playstation Plus) or to one specific game (such as World of Warcraft) (Wijman 2019). In 2020, international research showed that 35 percent of gamers used at least one subscription service (Jaeger et al. 2020); the share of such subscription services in the total turnover of the gaming industry was then 4 per centThis revenue model is made possible by cloud gaming: This allows for play on almost any device, as the games are 'hosted' on servers of cloud providers (Ecorys & KEA 2023).  

The rise of this revenue model led to an unprecedented international acquisition frenzy between 2021 and 2023, with several Dutch studios also being acquired. Companies are acquiring more content for their subscription services: the more studios (and licenses held by these studios) are part of your company, the more games you can add (Elliot 2022, Maessen 2022a, see also Maessen 2022b). The size of cloud gaming remains marginal, however, with global sales reaching $2,27 billion in 2024 (Capello et al. 2024).

Microtransactions are also a widely used revenue model: this concerns purchases that you make within a (often free) game, such as cosmetic upgrades or loot boxes. Loot boxes in particular have been in the news a lot. The player often pays for these digital grab bags with real money, without knowing whether they get something valuable or worthless. The Netherlands and Belgium were one of the first countries in the world to actively take action against loot boxes and this is now also receiving attention at European level (Bright 2022, Batchelor 2023b).

By no longer basing a game on a one-time purchase, but on selling features within the game, the way games are designed changes. The focus is no longer on encouraging the consumer to buy the game, but on encouraging the consumer to keep coming back to the game – so-called player retention. Because the more the consumer plays, the more profit can be made – through advertising or selling additional features (Capello et al. 2024).

Technological developments: VR and AI 

The gaming industry is a creative industry that is driven by technological developments. In recent decades, these developments have determined how, where and with whom we play games: from linear games with a fixed scenario to open-world games in which players determine their own path, and from gaming together on a console to online gaming with thousands of others. Two technologies that are determining the further development of the gaming industry are Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality (VR) has undergone a major transformation in the gaming world in recent years. What started as an experimental technology available to a handful of tech enthusiasts has developed into a significant segment within the gaming industry. With significant investments in research and development, as well as the emergence of standalone and wireless headsets, VR has become increasingly immersive and accessible. It is estimated that by 2024, there will be 46 million VR headsets in use worldwide, a fivefold increase from 2019. A major factor behind this development is the relatively affordable headset from Meta (formerly Facebook), which made VR available to the general public (Kuzuhara et al. 2022). 

Games serve as an important link between consumers and VR. In a survey by market researcher Newzoo, 39 percent of consumers say they VR headset owners indicate that gaming is their primary usage purpose (Kuzuhara et al. 2022). VR gamers, on the other hand, make up a small portion of the total number of gamers: only 2,4 percent of Steam users play games with a VR headset (Steam 2024). Despite this relatively small number, game developers seem to be increasingly focusing on the VR market. In 2025, 22 percent of Dutch makers to develop a game for a VR platform, compared to only 8 percent in 2019 (Grinsven et al. 2025).

Artificial Intelligence
Another technology that has gained increased attention in the games industry – and the wider creative industries – in recent years is Artificial Intelligence (AI). While AI has been used in video games for decades to create adaptive characters and storylines, the rapid development of generative AI (genAI) is now opening up even more possibilities (Cairns 2023).

The survey of the recent Games Monitor provides insight into the application of genAI within the development process of Dutch game studios. For example, genAI is mainly used in programming: 48 percent of the relevant respondents use the technology for this. When generating content, such as game art and text, the figures show a clear difference between the intended applications. Most use takes place in generating prototypes and concepts (40 percent of respondents), while the use for the final game content is considerably more limited (27 percent for text and 20 percent for game art). Generating audio and music is the least used area of ​​genAI, with approximately 20 percent use in pre-production and 15 percent in the final product. These percentages are expected to increase significantly in the coming years, given the number of studios that are not yet using genAI, but are considering it (Grinsven et al. 2025).

This does not mean that everyone is equally enthusiastic about the rapid rise of genAI. 23 percent of respondents are against the use of this technology within the gaming industry. And even developers who do see genAI as an opportunity have mixed feelings about it, mainly because of the unethical way in which most models are trained (Grinsven et al. 2025). In addition to copyright, the application of genAI also raises many questions about employment and environmental impact. A survey among game developers worldwide shows that 84 percent of developers are concerned about such issues (GDC 2024). The same survey shows that developers have become more negative about genAI in a short period of time. Where in 2021 18 percent still thought that genAI has a negative impact on the gaming industry, this will have risen to 2025 percent in 30.

Working on diversity, equity and inclusion

It is becoming increasingly clear that the image of gamers as primarily young, white, heterosexual men (GLAAD 2024) needs to be challenged. For example, data from VGFN (2023) showed that almost half of all players in the Netherlands are women and gaming is also popular among the LGBTQIA+ community worldwide – according to GLAAD, 17 percent of active gamers identify as LGBTQIA+ (GLAAD 2024). It is also not the case that only young people play games: 37 percent of all Dutch people between the ages of 45 and 65 play games occasionally (Maessen 2022c).

However, the consequences of this image have an impact in many ways. Firstly, the gaming industry is predominantly staffed by white men. In the Netherlands, only 2012 percent of workers in the gaming industry were women in 14, but this will have increased to 2024 percent in 23 (Grinsven et al. 2025). Data on game developers worldwide shows that creators are predominantly male and white – where this was 2023 and 77 percent respectively in 65, it will be 2025 and 66 percent in 59 (GDC 2023 and 2025). Research among more than 1.100 (mainly American) developers showed that the number of developers from the LGBTIQA+ community and developers with a disability was slightly above average (IGDA 2024).

Underrepresentation and discrimination are also a problem in games themselves. This is reflected in who is and is not represented in games and in the way in which this is done. For example, it appears that women, characters of color, from the LGBTIQA+ community, with a disability, from an older age group or who are overweight are much less or even hardly present (Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media et al. 2021). In addition to the fact that these different categories are underrepresented, they are often also portrayed according to stereotypes. For example, women are much more likely to be depicted wearing revealing clothing or (partially) naked than male characters (Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media et al. 2021).  

These proportions contribute to the high prevalence of discrimination, sexual harassment and transgressive behaviour, not only among gamers but also in the workplace. In recent years, this has mainly become known among large foreign studios (NOS 2023, Bright 2022b, 2021 and 2020), but in previous years our interviewees from the Dutch industry also reported that they had encountered or experienced examples of this during their careers. Gamers also suffer from transgressive behaviour. For example, women and girls who play online games are often confronted with sexist behaviour and intimidation (Putten et al. 2021). More than half of gamers who identify as LGBTQIA+ also indicate that they experience intimidation when playing online games. Of this group, 42 percent avoided playing certain games for fear of intimidation and 27 percent stopped playing a game because of intimidation (GLAAD 2024).

Although the games industry has a long way to go in terms of diversity, more and more people are making efforts in this regard. There are now many initiatives and organizations working on this, such as: Women in Games, AbleGamers , the Dutch Games [4Diversity] en HiPerks. Their work contributes to the increasing attention for diversity and inclusion at events, in the media, but also in games themselves. Characters from minority groups are still not sufficiently represented, but there is a visible increase in games with more inclusive characters or the possibility to create characters yourself (Maessen 2024, Hermus 2021, Havermans 2020). In 2025, 34 percent of Dutch game developers indicated that they were considering diversity and inclusion in the design and development of games (Grinsven et al. 2025). Games are also increasingly and increasingly receiving more options that make them more accessible to players with disabilities (Maessen 2024, Wijman 2020). In 2024, 49 percent of developers worldwide said they work at a studio that implements such accessibility features, compared to 39 percent in 2022 (GDC 2022 and 2024).