The games industry in Flanders

In collaboration with four studios we were able to establish a straightforward declaration system with clear KPIs. We settled on several measuring points including, but not limited to diversity, turnover and game figures.

We contacted all studios that received production support at the very least by 2022 or vertical slice support as of 2023 for one or more projects since the VAF/Game Fund was established. Companies that are no longer primarily focused on games were required to submit a final report on their games and are not included in our 2023 scan. Additionally, companies that are no longer operational have been excluded entirely.

This report includes only games that had some form of engagement in 2023. Given the different business models, the following events count as instances of engagement: downloads, purchases, logins for free to play games and indirect revenue generated through advertising or merchandise. In summary any kind of activity, regardless of revenue is considered to be engagement.

The data collection was limited to Flemish studios that had previously received VAF-support. This corresponds to about 60% of the Flemish market and represents around 30% in terms of revenue. Studios that do not request support from VAF are typically large and generate sufficient revenue to fund their projects independently of financial aid. Our intent is to conduct a more comprehensive survey in collaboration with federations and other relevant bodies in 2024, in order to include these studios in the study.

Latest update: 30/10/2024

A total of 46 studios took part in this study and supplied data for both 2022 and 2023. Three studios were only established last year and therefore unable to provide figures for 2022. The table below provides a year-on-year comparison of the number of studios, employees and full-time equivalents (FTE’s), including the share of the three new studios. The number of employees increased by 17.4% year-on-year, while the number of full-time equivalents rose by 11.8%.

*FTE= Full-time equivalents

In regards to gender the demographic profile of university students can be considered an indicator of the future composition of employees. Two bachelor degrees are available in Flanders and Brussels with a focus on video games: Digital Arts & Entertainment (DAE) at Howest in Kortrijk and Game Design at LUCA in Genk. The former offers an English-language curriculum, while the latter is in Dutch-language. Both are open to international students and offer shorter programmes for one or more semesters in addition to the three-year bachelor's degree.

The graph below provides a detailed analysis of the Belgian students enrolled in these two programmes, with a particular focus on the total number of students and the number of students graduating in 2023 who will most likely represent the new employees of Flemish game studios in 2023. At Howest, 15.9% of registered students were women. However Howest does not possess data regarding non-binary individuals or any other genders besides men and women. Notably, international students account for nearly twice the proportion of women students. When including them in the calculation, the percentage of women students rises to 24.5%.

At LUCA, we see that 14% of the total number of students are women, 4% are non-binary and 82% identify as men. Here, we also see that international students provide a higher proportion of women. If we include them, it is 19.3% women and 3.5% non-binary.

Among 2023 graduates of DAE, 17.1% were women (out of 117 students). Graduates of Game Design, 11.1% were women (out of 9 students). This means that collectively 16.7% of game education graduates were women. This is expected to increase further in the coming years. Overall, the number of women among new students in 2023 increased (18.3%). The games industry remains male-dominated, but it is encouraging to see that women are increasingly represented in the workforce.

As mentioned before, 22.3% of total income came from 'work for hire'. This means that revenue was generated from work for other companies, not from their own intellectual property. It is important for studios to have a stable revenue stream while working on their game, since it can take two to three years for a game to see the light of day.

If we analyse how much 'work for hire' is done by province, there are some interesting findings. In West Flanders, 'work for hire' is double than the average (48.2%), presumably because of training and incubators. Limburg (16.5%) is one of the lowest-performing provinces in 2023. Only beaten by Antwerp with only 12.9% of turnover originating from 'work from hire'.

Surprisingly, ‘work for hire’ in the youngest and smallest studios is very low; only 8.8% of the turnover of studios with less than 1 FTE and 10.4% of the turnover of studios less than 1 year old. We presume that they may rely on funding such as VAF-support for the first year, or that the founders may still be employed elsewhere and are therefore have a stable income while they're working on game projects that don't generate income.

Studios between 1 and 5 years old are pretty close to the average (24.9%). However, just one category higher - studios between 5 and 10 years old - a spectacular 60% of turnover comes from 'work for hire'. These studios have usually built up a sizeable team. We can see this represented in the increase of average number of FTEs. Since they have more employees who need a steady source of income but the studio's games might not generate enough income to bridge the development periods, they need to look for income elsewhere. Once a sufficient buffer has been built up, this percentage drops to 51.5% in the next age category (10+ years). We see similar trends in terms of number of employees, where 42.8% of revenue comes from 'work for hire' in studios with 1 to 4.9 FTE, and then decreases again.

It is noteworthy that the largest studios (20-29.9 FTEs: 28.5%) still rely on this source of income. Do these percentages reflect the balance that experienced studios have reached in order to continue to grow? Are these practical solutions to keep everyone working and not have downtime at various stages of game development. Or could we see this as a sign that companies are struggling, due to growing pains or an ever-changing market? These findings call for further research and a single snapshot is not enough to draw a definitive conclusion.

Diversity is more than gender. Limburg and West Flanders have the highest percentages of employees with a disability, in which we specifically included neurodiversity. The fact that these two provinces are also home to the only game courses in Flanders may have an influence on these results. Game studios in Flemish Brabant and Brussels do not have any employees with reported disabilities.

In West Flanders, where Howest is the only university in Flanders to also offer courses in English, we see that no less than 12.5% of the employees have a migration background, although in absolute terms this is only 3 out of 24 employees so our sample size is too small to make definitive conclusions. Limburg, on the other hand, has the lowest proportion of employees with a migration background, with only 1 out of 42 employees or 2.38%.

An interesting trend we noticed is that younger and smaller companies have more employees with a migration background. 7.76% of employees in a studio with between 1 and 4.9 FTEs have a migration background. The same is true for 8.11% of employees in studios between 1 and 5 FTEs. Larger and older companies on average employ fewer people with a migration background. The younger or smaller the company, the more opportunities may be given to someone with a migration background.

People with disabilities are pretty evenly represented in most segments. However, companies with 10 to 19.9 FTE had no people with disabilities in 2023, which we believe is mere happenstance and not indicative of certain trends. We can see that the more employees with disabilities work in the older and more established studios: employees with disabilities in the 10+ category is relatively high (3.41%).

What is most remarkable, is that studios with up to one full-time equivalent (FTE) – which includes the owners – do not have any employees with a disability or migration background. In general, these are sole proprietorships. This observation does not imply that there are no founders without a migration background or disability; rather, such individuals are more likely to be found in younger studios with multiple founders.