It's game on as the industry's biggest names look to level up at a mega gaming convention in Germany.

Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service.

I'm Leanna Byrne. Good morning.

So the biggest names in video games are showing what they've got at the Trade Fair Gamescom in Germany.

Revenue in the global games market is

forecast to hold at just under $190 billion this year, but the industry is weathering a rough

patch with layoffs and studio closures in the last few years. The BBC's Laura Crest joins us from Cologne.

Hello, Laura. Hello, Leanna. Laura, what's going on there today?

Well, it's incredibly busy here. I am in the middle of the Kohlmesser Expo Center here in Cologne in

Germany. We've got 1,500 exhibitors here at Gamescom this year from over 72 countries. It's a massive,

massive industry, the games industry, of course,

much bigger than the film industry, the music industry. This is where it all happens. It's where

players get a taste of upcoming games and it's where game makers can also do lots of businesses as well.

Yeah, it is such a huge industry and I feel sometimes people forget that. But what are some of

the conversations

happening right now in the industry? Well, it is quite a difficult time actually because

post-pandemic we've seen a bit of a slump. There was this massive, massive growth during the

pandemic when of course a lot of people were indoors. We've now seen a bit of a slump in that.

A lot of people are just playing one or two games, possibly a year. And that means these kind of events are a massive way, even for small titles, to get their business out there. And, you know, I believe there's expected to be about over 400,000 people attending. But how does a gaming company cope with that?

It's very difficult.

And unfortunately, what we have seen is that several of them haven't.

You know, we have seen layoffs continue into this year.

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