Gamelab, one of the best-known organizations in the video game sector in Europe, landed this Wednesday in Barcelona, where it will hold its congress for the next three days. It takes place in different cultural and economic venues in the city and has more than 250 registered companies and organizations. Through the seventy planned activities, the aim is to focus on attracting projects and talent for this sector in Catalonia, but also to reflect on other aspects. The operations director of Gamelab, Carolina Gaona, recalls that it is an industry that "has not stopped growing" and that has "a great impact on society."
As Gaona explained to ACN, the project was born in 2004, when it started as a "fair" to showcase the talent that existed, since "there was no system as consolidated as now." Over time, it ended up becoming a platform that not only focuses on the days the congress lasts, but "works all year round" as a connecting axis between professionals.
This international congress ---which returns after the pandemic--- and which this year celebrates its 17th edition (the fourth in the Catalan capital), has created around its action one of the most important networks of economic and business influence in the world in the field of video games and digital entertainment. In fact, the event has aroused much interest and, in less than 48 hours, sold out tickets.
This year it takes place in five venues that represent different cultural and economic communities of Barcelona. The Mediatic building hosts the congress conferences, divided into three tracks of strategic and market knowledge, ecosystem and professionalization. The Disseny Hub, located a few meters from the previous one, is the chosen place for the development of the business agenda, which is co-organized with the sector's employers' association DeviCAT, generating investment and international commercialization opportunities for products for Catalan companies.
The Palau de la Música Catalana, for its part, opens its doors to the institutional welcome event of the congress, with representatives of society, culture, economy and politics of the country. Finally, the community of independent development companies and projects will work on the creativity and diversity of the sector in two special events, which will take place at the Pier 01 - Tech Barcelona and at the offices of the studio IO Interactive.
The reason for this new restructuring is to bring the initiative closer to the citizens, which is why, according to Gaona, "it is open to everyone for free." Throughout the three days of the event, companies from the video game sector at a Catalan, state, and global level are expected to attend, including more than 80 European industry leaders, such as Peter Molyneux (Fable, Populous, Theme Park) and Ian Livingstone (TombRaider, Dungeons& Dragons).
For the director of operations of Gamelab, however, the conferences must go further and also provide a space for reflection. "Beyond the recreational aspect, it is an industry that can mobilize a large number of people and send messages to society," she remarked. In fact, for Gaona, video games provide great "comfort" to people, in addition to acting as a "connection platform between people."
At a professional level, she highlights that they become a "source of inspiration," and concludes that—being an industry that mobilizes significant revenue—it must escape a capitalism that "only looks to do business" and maintains that it is necessary to bet on "healthy competition."
The sector's figures in Catalonia
According to the latest report from the Consell de l'Audiovisual de Catalunya (CAC), referring to 2022, the video game sector in Catalonia accounted for 50% of the total state turnover, which reached almost 2.5 billion euros. In this sense, Catalonia is positioned as the engine of the sector's ecosystem within the State, which, in turn, is the thirteenth country in the world in video game revenue.
Another piece of data highlighted by the report is that 40% of the world's leading video game companies have a presence in Catalonia, where there are more than 200 studios dedicated to this industry, and where 56 video game startups were launched in 2022.
Globally, last year the sector reached a turnover of 184.4 billion dollars. These revenues were distributed, geographically, among Asia-Pacific (48%), North America (26%) and Europe (18%). The top three positions in the ranking are occupied by China, the United States and Japan, with 45.8 billion, 45.0 billion and 20.0 billion dollars, respectively.
The CCMA will invest in video games
Within the framework of the Gamelab celebration in Barcelona, the Director of Innovation, Research and Digital Strategy of the Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals (CCMA), Cristina Villà, accompanied by the Head of Digital Arts and Video Games of the CCMA, Oriol Boira, have presented the opening of a call for the video game sector with the aim of finding a new format aimed at a family and children's audience.
Specifically, this economic line is aimed at selecting a video game project focused on an audience aged 10 to 14. In this first call, the aim is to select a single project. The CCMA will enter into a co-production regime, with an investment of up to 550,000 euros. The final funding for the video game must be at least 1,100,000 euros to ensure that it is a competitive project at an international level.
The objective of this initiative is to publish and provide content in Catalan to the main video game consoles on the market (Playstation 4/5, XboxOne/Series X and S and NintendoSwitch) and on the Steam digital distribution platform. The selection call will be activated in the coming weeks.