Berlin Partner and Medienboard
STUDIO INSIGHT
A wide-reaching support network is making Berlin an increasingly attractive location
finding talent, and they can come to us with their individual projects. So they not only get funding for their company, but their game, too. And we can fund up to half of the whole cost, which is quite a lot of money. We’ve got a lot of really good feedback from the companies that we’ve worked with who say that it really helped them to make a start and to get their first project out. Our funding is important because developers can remain in control of their IP and it needn’t be sold to a big publisher. It’s really nice that we can support them in this way. We have so many really interesting educational institutions, as well, such as the Games Academy. We have everything here – main institutions like games.net berlinbrandenburg, G.A.M.E., BIU and USK have headquarters here in Berlin.
So there’s a great deal of momentum? BR
Yeah, I think for the past two years we’ve seen a big international wave of companies arriving. It all started with Kabam last year, and some Asian companies from Korea and other places. And now King has arrived, of course, and the next big one will be ProSiebenSat.1, which is a German company, but it’s a global one. It bought Aeria Games and now it’s bringing all its game people from Munich to Berlin for a merger, which will form SevenGames. This studio will be a huge player in Berlin’s game industry.
How do companies approach you? BR
Mostly, people know about us already and call us, or we get in contact with them through our networks. I go to trade fairs a lot and meet a lot of people, too.
Tell us about International Games Week Berlin, and how it’s grown. IG
This was something we were involved with from the beginning – we initiated the process in 2004, and finally in 2007 we had the Deutsche Gamestage. It’s taken place every year since then, and for the 2014 event we’ve changed the name to International Games Week Berlin to stress that gaming is not something German, but an entirely international business… There’s a business convention called Quo Vadis, the DCP (German Computer Game Award), and A MAZE., an indie game festival. Then there’s Gamefest, organised by the Foundation Of Digital Gaming Culture, and the Computer Games Museum, which we helped to bring here, and both of which are unique in Berlin.