News

Hamburg to invest $2.2 million into local games industry over next four years

Open to developers of any size in the city

Date Type Companies involved Size
January 10th, 2020 investment $2.2m
€2m
Hamburg to invest $2.2 million into local games industry over next four years

The German city of Hamburg has pledged to invest €2 million ($2.2 million) into various game developers and firms over the next four years.

€520,000 ($577,000) will be given in funding each year until 2023, with €400,000 ($443,700) going towards prototypes under a new program due to launch later in 2020.

Grants for each project can be obtained for up to €80,000 ($88,700), with developers that do win the pitch needing to pay a quarter of costs.

Any games company of any size can apply for the funding, however they must be positioned in Hamburg with a permanent office.

"Additional motivation"

"Hamburg is one of the largest locations for the development and marketing of computer games in Germany," said Hamburg minister of culture and media Dr Carsten Brosda.

"A total of ten private and public educational institutions also train the developers and games specialists of tomorrow. With the new games funding and the incubator, we are giving founders and start-ups an additional motivation to implement their business ideas in Hamburg.

"At the same time, we are further strengthening the competencies of Gamecity: Hamburg with this funding and making this initiative of the Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft the central partner with extensive service offers for the games industry in Hamburg.”

Those interested in finding out more information about the pledge can visit here. Further details will be revealed surrounding applications in March 2020.

Last year Supercell held its $1 million Clash of Clans World Championship in Hamburg after more than 40 million players have competed in a series of qualifiers.


Deputy Editor

Matthew Forde is the deputy editor at PocketGamer.biz and also a member of the Pocket Gamer Podcast. You can find him on Twitter @MattForde64 talking about stats, data and everything pop culture related - particularly superheroes.