In numbers: The Spanish and Portuguese games industries

• Spain's games industry turned over €1.42bn in 2023.
• 815 Spanish studios were actively developing games in 2024.
• Annual turnover of Portuguese games companies rose close to €100m in 2024.

This article is from our free Iberia Region Report, published in association with Xsolla, available for download here. Join us at Pocket Gamer Connects Barcelona on June 15th and 16th to gain in-person insights on the market from the local industry.

The Spanish games market generated €2.41bn in 2024, marking a rise of 3% year-over-year, according to the last sector-wide report from the Spanish video games association AEVI, the Video Games Industry Yearbook of 2024.

Of this, the physical games market made up €850 million in sales, while digital represented €1.56bn. The latter represented a rise of 19.75% from 2023, reflecting a continued consumer shift into online consumption.

Dissecting the digital games market further, AEVI found that €102m was spent on subscriptions to multiplayer services (up 22.5% Y/Y), while €867m was spent on online platforms, (up 17.42%) and €589m was spent on mobile apps.

Overall, the number of players in Spain’s games market stood at 22.1m in 2024, a rise of 10.22% Y/Y, representing 45% of the country’s total population. Women represented the largest market of players, accounting for 50.45% of all users.

At the time, Spanish gamers were said to dedicate an average of 8.2 hours per week on games. Comparatively, UK users were said to spend 11.08 hours, while players in Germany spent 11.53 hours on average on games.

Spain's games sector

When it comes to the makeup of Spain’s games industry, Spain developers trade association DEV released a 2024 white paper delving into the state of the local sector.

Spain’s games industry turned over €1.42bn in 2023, a rise of 3.1% year-over-year. The report said that 53% of this figure can be attributed to Catalonia. At the time, aggregate growth was expected to be 4.1% to 2027, hitting €1.67bn.

In 2024, the report found that there were 815 studios actively developing games that year. Curiously, it noted 495 of those were established as companies, while 320 had yet to do so.

Catalonia was the largest games hub, home to 32.3% of the country’s games industry. Madrid followed with 23.2%, while Andalusia accounted for 13.1% and the community of Valencia made up 10.1%.

Much of Spain’s games industry has already been established. In 2024, the report said that just 9% of companies had been around for less than two years, while 22% had been in business for two to five years.

Companies that had been around for between five and 10 years made up 38% of studios, while those making games for more than a decade accounted for 31% of studios.

PC was said to be the most popular platform for studios, accounting for 89% of games developed in the country. That was followed by Android at 52% (iOS made up 41%), and Nintendo Switch at 49%.

Jobs market

Looking again at 2023, Spain’s games sector was reported to have created 10,259 direct jobs that year, up 10% Y/Y. As with studios, Catalonia represented half of the country’s games workforce.

By 2027, it anticipated this to grow to 12,822 at an aggregate growth rate of 5.7%. Home to large companies like King, Rovio, and Scopely, the report predicted that there would eventually be a higher concentration of staff at the large firms. For 2023, for example, studios employing more than 50 staff represented 6% of all companies, but produced 53% of all jobs in the industry.

The topic of investment is a key one for games companies around the world, with access to funding becoming tougher and tougher for many studios. DEV surveyed Spain’s games companies and found that, at the time, 73% of those looking for funding were after less than €300,000 in investment, whilst 39% of studios said they were looking for funding between €50k to €150k.

Portugal's key numbers

It’s tougher to find key figures for Portugal’s rising games industry. But, thanks to the country’s trade body APVP, there are a few key data points to share:

• Between 2018 and 2024, annual turnover for Portuguese games companies has risen from €5.4 million to close to €100 million.
• Turnover rose at an average annual growth rate of more than 56%.
• There are over 160 active studios currently operating in Portugal.
• There were 725 people working in the industry in 2023, according to the EGDF European Video Games Industry Insight Report.