Looking Back at 2020: Achievements Unlocked for the Games Hotspot Hamburg

Gamecity Hamburg's December 2020 year-in-review argues that, despite pandemic disruption, the city's games ecosystem achieved more than in any prior year by relaunching funding, reinventing events for digital formats, and launching new talent programs. The review covers Hamburg's indie and professional games scene across twelve months of 2020, with an outlook to 2021.

The centerpiece is the relaunched Hamburg Prototype Funding, which makes 400,000 euros available annually, with grants of up to 80,000 euros per project as non-repayable support. In June 2020 an expert committee awarded a combined 430,000 euros to seven projects: Wild Woods, Lost Sector, Out of Place, Project MORPH, Soulitaire, Stadtkinder, and Lazor Punx. The next application phase was announced for March 2021. The incubator Games Lift debuted in the final quarter with five Hamburg teams, offering up to 15,000 euros in start-up funding, a three-month workshop and mentoring program, co-working space, and guidance from 30 international professionals. It concluded with a hybrid graduation pitch event on December 8, with applications for 2021 opening in June.

Events were largely rethought. The revamped Hamburg Games Conference, focused on monetization, ran for two days in February at the Zeise cinema with three stages, 30 speakers, and over 400 B2B visitors; the 2021 edition was set to go online on March 16 and 17. The Game Starter series held four Zoom sessions connecting career starters with Hamburg designers, artists, community managers, and programmers. With gamescom cancelled as a physical event, Super Crowd Entertainment launched the Indie Arena Booth Online in August, an avatar-based multiplayer exhibition space featuring a Gamecity booth with nine Hamburg games. In November, Gamecity's first Online Game Jam, held alongside the PLAY20 festival under the theme "Exploring Borders," produced 26 games in roughly 45 hours from international participants.

Looking ahead, the organization plans further prototype grants, a second Games Lift batch, more Game Starter sessions, and new networking formats for 2021.