Dutch Games Monitor 2020

2020 UPDATE – COVID IMPACT

Since 2012 Dutch Game Garden, in collaboration with the
Dutch Games Association, keeps track of developments in
the Dutch video games industry roughly every three years.
By combining extensive desk research and a broad survey
within the games industry we capture these developments
in the Games Monitor report. The Games Monitor has 3
editions so far, looking into the state of the industry for the
years 2012, 2015, and 2018. If we follow this pattern a new
Games Monitor is due in the first half of 2022 presenting
the numbers for 2021. The year 2020 however, has had such
an enormous impact on everybody that we felt the urge to
present a short update on the Games Monitor report and
provide insights on the impact the COVID-19 crisis has had.
We sincerely thank everybody who has contributed to this
update! And we are looking forward to having continued
conversations and discussions about the growth and
development of the Dutch Games Industry.
For this overview we have used the same criteria for the games indus –
try as in the earlier Games Monitor reports, for a full explanation we
refer to chapter 7 of the Games Monitor 2018 (pages 48-51 of the full
report) . We have updated our database according to these criteria and
based on a limited survey we can give indications on the development
of the turnover and the number of people employed in the Dutch games
industry. In the next monitor, we will provide a more detailed analysis.
At the end of November 2020, we sent out a survey to around 500 peo –
ple. A little over 100 respondents filled in the survey.

All rights reserved© Dutch Game Garden 2021
PARTNERS
COVER IMAGE
The Falconeer
by Tomas Sala
BACKCOVER IMAGE
Blightbound
by Ronimo Games
1

3
GAMES MONITOR
UPDATE 2020
NUMBER OF GAME COMPANIES
The number of game companies in the
Netherlands has risen from 575 in 2018 to 615
by the end of 2020. This growth mainly took
place in the number of solo developers and/
or freelancers. Compared to the 2018 edition
88 companies were discarded from the list
of active game companies. Some of these
companies ended their registration at the
Chamber of Commerce, some of them merged
into a larger company and several companies
still have a Chamber of Commerce registration
but are not actively engaged in the company
anymore (for example no social media activity
for more than a year, website down and/or
the employees and founders are all working
elsewhere). In the past 2 years, 6 companies
filed for bankruptcy. 3 companies out of these
6 made a new start in another entity, for the
other 3 procedures haven’t been concluded
yet. Another 10 companies shifted their focus
and are not active in games anymore or games
are just a small part of their portfolio.

LOCATION
In the past two years, a lot of companies
changed their company address. We counted
more than 110 new addresses in our database
(not counting the new companies), meaning
that more than 20% of the existing companies
relocated! Most of these new offices were
found within the original city of business.
In terms of the number of companies,
Amsterdam and Utrecht are the cities with
the most companies. Together these two
cities house about one-third of the Dutch
game companies. Rotterdam, Groningen, The
Hague, and Eindhoven also house more than
20 companies each. In terms of employees,
Amsterdam remains the most important hub,
housing some of the country ’s largest game
companies.

Good Job!
Paladin Studios
1 https://www.dutchgamegarden.nl/project/games-monitor/

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COVID IMPACT
The COVID-pandemic obviously had its
impact on the Dutch games industry in 2020.
As in all sectors of the economy, companies
had to deal with working from home and
with the fact that all physical events were
canceled since March. We asked companies
how these circumstances impacted their
company and their work.

WORKING REMOTELY
85% of the respondents of our survey
answered that they work remotely more
than before the pandemic. The other 15%
were mostly freelancers or small companies
who were already used to working remotely.
Working from home was a straightforward
transition for most, as game company
infrastructure generally, already has been set
up to work in a digital environment.
We’ve asked the respondents if the increase in
remote working impacted their productivity,
creativity, stress levels, quality of work, and
employee involvement. Working remotely
had little impact on the quality of work, about
75% of respondents stated that the impact
was neutral. Not surprisingly the largest
impact of working remotely was experienced
in employee engagement. Despite efforts
of employers in organizing digital drinks,
presents sent to employee’s homes etc.
employee engagement was lower
for more than half of the companies.
For instance, the informal work culture was
more difficult to maintain and people missed
the casual talks during coffee or lunch breaks.
Stress levels were higher for almost half of
the respondents. The impact on creativity
showed a more diverse picture. Overall, 43%
experienced lower creativity. But for applied
game companies this was 80%. In general,
applied game companies make several games
for clients each year, meaning they have to go
through the cycle of coming up with new ideas
several times per year. Many entertainment
companies work on one game for a longer
period. Therefore, the effect on creativity
varies depending on the development phase
of the game they are working on. The effect
on productivity was mixed as well. For about
a third of the companies, productivity was
lower, for more than 40% the effect was
neutral, and for almost a quarter of the
companies, productivity was higher. Within
companies, employers saw a difference
between more extroverted and introverted
people, where the latter category adjusted
easier to working from home or even thrived.
And of course, the home situation (children at
home or not, having ample space or not) had a
huge effect on individual employees.
Lower Neutral Higher
Figure 1. COVID-pandemic impact on productivity,
creativity, stress levels, quality of work and employee
involvement.

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ECONOMIC EFFECTS
In all kinds of media, the video games industry
was presented as one of the sectors of
the economy that profited from the COVID
pandemic, especially from all the lockdowns
worldwide. People had fewer opportunities
to visit restaurants, movie theaters, sports
clubs, and events etc., and had to find
distractions at home. “Gaming was a means
for entertainment, escapism, and socializing
and interacting with friends/family for
many consumers, leading to unprecedented
growth for the games market.” Based on this
observation, Newzoo raised the expected total
worldwide revenues in 2020 for entertainment
games to almost $ 175 billion, a 19,6% growth.

For the Dutch video games industry, the
situation was a mixed bunch depending very
much on the focus, type of customer, and
phase in the game development process of
each individual company. We saw a huge
difference between business-to-business
(B2B) companies on the one hand and
business-to-consumer (B2C) companies
on the other hand, especially after the first
lockdowns hit. In general, B2B companies
suffered in the spring of 2020. Because
there was a lot of insecurity in the market
about how the pandemic would develop,
large assignments were put on hold or even
canceled. For applied game companies the
type of customers also determined how they
were affected. Companies developing games
for healthcare saw attention shifting almost
completely to the COVID pandemic. This
led to new opportunities that could cater to
the needs of COVID patients and healthcare
professionals or to providing solutions
for eHealth. Whereas companies being
dependent on testing on patients or access to
healthcare facilities had to search for other
solutions. Companies developing games for
museums for instance saw their business
come to a halt. After the first lockdowns
ended the market picked up again, but it was
more difficult to find new customers due to
the lack of physical events. Companies with
an already larger customer base were able to
recover faster.

For entertainment companies, different
trends could be seen. Foremost the growth
in the market based on the growing use
of games on all platforms and also by the
introduction of a new generation of consoles
in the fall of 2020 (Xbox Series X and
PlayStation 5). The advertisement market
for entertainment games experienced some
ups and downs. The price per advertisement
declined from March onwards. Campaigns
were pulled back or postponed because all
kinds of activities were closed during the
lockdowns. But the growth in the number of
players often compensated for the loss.
2 https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/game-engagement-during-covid-pandemic-adds-15-billion-to-global-games-market-revenue-forecast/
SAMSARA ROOM
Rusty Lake
2

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REVENUE DEVELOPMENT
60% of our respondents expected a higher
revenue than they realized in 2019. So, without
the enormous growth in playing time, most
companies expected a higher revenue.
Around 40% of the respondents who make
entertainment games stated their actual
revenue was even higher than expected. Only
a few applied game companies did likewise.
Many entertainment companies therefore,
were able to profit from the situation in 2020.
In general, micro-companies profited less
than larger companies. On the opposite side
of the balance, some companies suffered
and about a third had a lower revenue than
expected.
EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT
Most of the companies who filled in our survey
saw no change in the number of employees.
25% of the companies realized an increase in
the number of employees. For most of those
companies, the growth was organic and was
not influenced by the COVID pandemic. For a
few companies, this growth was influenced by
COVID. 9% of the companies saw a decrease
in the number of employees, for almost all
this was entirely or partially influenced by the
COVID pandemic.
Based on the information available on
companies’ website, LinkedIn profiles, and
their updates in the Dutch Games Industry
Directory , we can conclude that most large
companies grew in the number of employees
in the past two years. Overall therefore, we
estimate that the total number of employees
in the Dutch video game industry has risen to
around 4000 employees.

The Dutch government took measures in the
early phases of the first lockdown to prevent a
huge growth in unemployment. Based on the
preliminary reports around 85 game-related
companies took advantage of these measures
and applied for support for their labor costs.
In general, these companies are mainly
active in the B2B markets (both applied and
entertainment games). During the year the
number of game companies that used these
support measures decreased significantly.
FREELANCERS
Out of the 75 companies in the survey that
use freelancers in their business, 32 made
more use of freelancers in 2020. For 20 of
them, this was not influenced by the COVID
pandemic. For 36 companies, the employment
of freelancers remained stable. 7 companies
used fewer freelancers, this was mostly
influenced by the pandemic. To a small extent
companies used freelancers as a flexible labor
force instead of contracting new employees.
3 https://dutchgameindustry.directory/
3

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INTERNSHIPS
Half of the companies in our survey do not
employ interns. For half of the companies
that do have interns, there was no change
in the number of interns. 18 companies had
fewer interns due to the COVID pandemic.
7 companies canceled internships halfway
through because of the obligations to work
from home. They felt that proper supervision
in this situation was not possible. No company
ended an internship because of a lack of
work/tasks for the intern.
In the first months of 2021, we had a few
conversations with game educators, from all
educational levels, in the Netherlands. These
conversations confirm the impression about
internships. There were some internships
cancelled during the first half of 2020 because
of the first lockdown. But in the fall semester
there were no large problems with internships
for game students. Most students were able
to find an internship, the number of students
that did not was no different than the regular
percentage of students without internships.

LACK OF PHYSICAL EVENTS
We’ve asked our respondents about the effect
of the lack of physical events. For about a
third of the respondents, digital events were
a good alternative and these events provided
them with new business opportunities. In a
discussion organized by the Dutch Games
Association at the end of 2020, some of the
participants were positive about not having
to wait for a physical event to meet with a
business partner. For them, it became more
common to have digital calls at any time of
the year with business partners. Deal-making
became more efficient because the waiting
time in between meetings was shorter. But
establishing new relationships with new
(potential) business partners was much
harder. A social meeting at an event (drinking
a coffee or sharing a meal) works better to
establish a basis of trust than several digital
meetings. A third of the respondents in our
survey indicated that they weren’t able to
meet with third parties for new business
opportunities. Roughly 20% weren’t able to
promote their game as intended and 15%
weren’t able to meet with a publisher or
investor.
Figure 2. Impact of lack of physical events.
2 https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/game-engagement-during-covid-pandemic-adds-15-billion-to-global-games-market-revenue-forecast/

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SUMMARY
The year 2020 was an unusual year for
everyone, the video game industry was no
exception to that. But this industry was
one of the sectors that profited from the
fact that people had to spend more time at
home. For the Dutch games industry, we
saw large differences between business-
to-business companies and business-to-
consumer companies. The entertainment
companies who mostly sell games directly
to the consumer through digital channels
saw an increase in revenue and benefited
from the lockdown situation. Business-to-
business companies suffered in the spring
of 2020 when clients paused or canceled
assignments. By the end of the year, some
were still struggling to get back on their feet.
Others with a larger client base and a larger
network were able to recover faster and
were able to find new projects. Working from
home was a straightforward transition
for most, as game company infrastructure
generally, already has been set up to work in a
digital environment. Quality of work therefore,
was hardly compromised. Company leadership
did feel a negative impact on employee
engagement. For the industry as a whole,
there has been growth since our latest Games
Monitor report in 2018. The Dutch video game
industry now consists of 615 companies and
roughly 4000 jobs.
PlaygroundVR
PlaygroundVR

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