Star Wars Battlefront 2: Starfighter Assault – names like this are unlikely to tempt German politicians, who have far too many real threats to deal with in the non-virtual here and now. But it would interest me to know how the likes of Angela Merkel, Martin Schulz, Christian Lindner and Katrin Göring-Eckardt would fare at games such as Minecraft and Mario Kart.
There's no denying that politicians have a fundamental interest in computer gaming – one that is no longer simply critical, as it was in earlier debates about the potential of first-person shooter games to inspire violent behavior. Especially now, with a federal election just around the corner, politicians in Germany are taking the country's millions of game enthusiasts seriously. It came as no surprise then that Chancellor Merkel herself turned up in Cologne to officially open the Gamescom 2017 tradeshow (August 22–26).
Merkel's message was loud and clear. According to dpa, she underscored the economic and social significance of digital games, calling them "cultural assets, innovation drivers and economic factors of the highest order." She described the gaming industry as a "strong pillar of the German economy." In her weekly podcast last Saturday, she said that she was already looking forward to the tradeshow. As in previous years, well over 300,000 visitors from some 100 countries are likely to home in on the Koelnmesse exhibition center to see what's new, test the games, talk shop and scout for trends.
Those whose main concern is that the digital transformation will be a job killer can get a more nuanced view of things at Gamescom. The gaming industry – along with adjacent segments such as virtual reality and augmented reality – is one area in which jobs are being created. It can serve as a role model for companies, as Wirtschaftswoche, a German weekly business news magazine, commented recently. On the other hand, the German games industry reported a substantial decline in jobs in 2016 . While there were various reasons for this, the German Games Industry Association (BIU) considers the main ones to be "rising competitive pressure" and "an environment that continues to disadvantage local players compared with their international competitors."
As BIU Managing Director Felix Falk put it, it is essentially about promoting the development of computer games more intensively. "Countries such as Canada, France, the UK and Poland are doing a lot in this area, whereas Germany has no measures in place at the national level to encourage games development." The country's two relevant associations – the BIU and the Federal Association of the German Games Industry (GAME) – have just published a joint position paper on precisely the topic of a nationwide support scheme. And Angela Merkel promised: "In the next legislative period, we want to get all parties to the table with the aim of offering German developers reasonable opportunities as well."
The ten demands formulated by the industry associations also include infrastructure. "Low-latency gigabit networks ought to be available across the country by 2020." Okay, it's going to take a little bit longer than that to achieve superfast speeds at every spot on the map. After all, Germany's standard underground lines cost big bucks – and there isn't even enough construction capacity to lay all the cables needed in that short space of time. The main task at hand is to bridge the digital gap between urban centers and rural areas.
When it comes to broadband build-out, Deutsche Telekom's motto is "as fast as possible and as soon as possible for as many people as possible." It is a strategy that is paying off. According to the latest figures (July/August 2017, Cable.co.uk), the average download speed in Germany is 18.8 megabits per second, putting the country ahead of other large EU nations such as the UK, France and Italy. What is more, statistics published by the European Commission in May 2017 confirm that 82 percent of German households have access to fast broadband lines. That puts Germany in a respectable sixth spot in the EU, ahead of often quoted countries like Spain, Portugal, Estonia and Sweden.
To those who don't care much for the big picture and are simply annoyed about the slow Internet speeds at their particular location, we have this to say: Deutsche Telekom is alone 2017 investing five billion euros in Germany – and we are working flat out to design and implement 5G, the new telecommunications standard. 5G is a completely new network concept that integrates fixed-line and mobile communications. Existing infrastructures are integrated and real network capacities are connected to create virtual networks. The new network technology will have 1000 times more capacity, ten times higher transmission speeds and ten times less latency. 5G promises stable response times – much like those required by industry robots and also by gamers. In this way, gaming is closely allied as well with one of Deutsche Telekom's central concerns: building the best network infrastructure.
