Catalonia captures 120 million in investment in the video game sector in five years

Catalonia is the first region in the European Union in attracting foreign investment in the video game sector. This is confirmed by a study by the competitiveness agency Acció, which details that in the last five years, 20 new projects have been attracted, which have meant an investment of 120 million euros and the creation of almost 900 jobs.

Specifically, Catalonia has attracted 12.2% of foreign investment in video games destined for the entire EU between 2027 and 2021, with the United States, France, Sweden, and South Korea as the main investing countries. This places it ahead of other European regions such as Amsterdam (West Netherlands), Ireland, Sweden, and the areas of Bordeaux and Paris, in France. At the same time, Catalonia is the second region in the EU in terms of the number of jobs created with these foreign investment projects, with data extracted from fDi Markets.

In fact, 40% of the world's leading video game companies have a presence in Catalonia. Examples include the French Ubisoft, the American Scopely, the South Korean Smilegate, the British King, or the Japanese Bandai Namco. The report also highlights the acquisition of the Barcelona-based firm Digital Legends by Activision Blizzard, which was subsequently bought by Microsoft, or that of Social Point by Take-Two. "Companies come here because we have managed to create an ecosystem that attracts," said the Minister of Business and Labor, Roger Torrent, who met with about twenty companies in the sector this Friday.

As a key area for the impulse it provides in terms of disruption and innovation, the video game sector continues to be one of the Government's bets. In this sense, Acció is working with a portfolio of 40 potential projects from foreign companies that have already shown interest in settling in Catalonia, according to Minister Torrent, who stressed that this impulse also contributes to developing local talent.

Precisely, this has been one of the topics discussed at the meeting: "We must continue working on talent generation because we lack technological and digital profiles," Torrent admitted. In this regard, he stressed that it is necessary to "focus on vocational campaigns," especially for women, who are currently a minority in the sector. "We need more students, who will then continue in the educational system and nourish this industry," said the head of Business and Labor. "The video game sector is very dynamic and disruptive and needs new knowledge," he added.

According to the sectoral radiography carried out by the aforementioned report, currently Catalonia represents 50% of the turnover of the video game industry in all of Spain, according to ICEC data. Catalonia has 56 startups linked to this sector (a growth of 43% in the last four years), a dozen universities with specialized training and 7 technology centers with R&D projects in this field, as well as associations, incubators and top-level events such as DeviCAT, GameBCN or the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE).