Regional Game Industry Profile Hamburg

Hamburg is one of Germany’s fourth biggest game industry cluster. Out of a total of 171 business* in the whole industry, around 90 companies focus on game development and publishing. In relation to the population of the focus area, the Hamburg Game Industry has the largest amount of game related companies in the BSR, following Denmark as the leading nation. Hamburg hosts four of the ten largest German game companies in terms of the number of employees (Source: Gameswirtschaft). Though there are no specific counts for employed developers, it can be estimated that with roughly 1,200 employees working for the aforementioned four key players and 4,300 people working in the whole sector including games-related companies, Hamburg ranks high within the BSR with respect to workforce. Looking at the available support schemes, Hamburg has one interest/lobby association and five technical incubators which can also cater to game start-ups. This leaves opportunities for improvement with respect to targeted incubation support for game start-ups.

_{* The year covered is 2016.}

Additional information

Hamburg is presumed to be one of the leading business locations for games in Germany. Since Hamburg is a media city as well as a city state all relevant services are present and different locations are easily accessible within short distance and time. 171 game companies, operating in all game relevant fields are existing in Hamburg (2016), whereof 83 are developers and publishers. Most of the game companies in Hamburg are small (less than 10 employees in 2016) (128), but there are also a few big players with more than 100 employees (e.g. Big Point, Daedalic, Gamigo, InnoGames, Goodgame Studios).

A strong games culture has been developed in the Hamburg region. As part of the creative industry and IT & media cluster, games are well integrated in the Hamburg cluster strategy consisting of eight clusters. To further strengthen the game sector in Hamburg, specific events and workshops for game companies take place, e.g. the Hamburg Games Conference, Gamecity-Treff or Indie Pitch Battle. Recently, cross-cluster collaboration gets into the focus, especially related to the competences of gamification.

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Status: 01/2019

• gamecity:Hamburg
• Hamburg Media School (2017): Abschlussbericht zur Studie. Die Computer- und Videospielindustrie in Deutschland – Daten – Fakten – Analysen – Forschungs- und Kompetenzzentrum Audiovisuelle Produktion der Hamburg Media School