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Gamecity Hamburg
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The 15th Hamburg Games Conference and the Polaris convention were major regional events in 2024. Together, they attracted over 40,000 visitors.
Gamecity Hamburg's year-end review of 2024 recaps its events, funding programs, and local studio achievements, then previews the 2025 calendar. The piece, published December 17, 2024, serves as both a record of the Hamburg games industry initiative's activity and a call to action for upcoming applications and events.
Events in 2024 included the third Pitch Level Up in February, which returns February 20, 2025; the 15th Hamburg Games Conference at the Altonaer Museum; two Gamecity Treff networking evenings in May and October; and three FLINTA meetups. Online programming featured four Game Starters sessions on production, journalism, localization, and gameplay programming, along with two livestreams with marketing expert Chris Zukowski on Steam genre and demos. Funding continued through two annual programs. Prototype Funding backed five projects with up to 80,000 euros each, including Chaos Royale, Map Map, and The Regreening, while the Games Lift Incubator admitted five teams, including Team Honeybeak and Duck 'n' Run Games. A new Diversity Checklist was added to both programs. The "Road to" program supported Hamburg developers at the Hamburg Games Conference, Nordic Games in Malmö, Gamescom in Cologne, and Polaris in Hamburg, which drew over 40,000 visitors.
Hamburg studios earned notable recognition. At the German Computer Game Awards, ROCKFISH Games won Best German Game for EVERSPACE 2, and Symmetry Break Studio, Fox-Assembly, and Tivola Games also won categories. Osmotic Studios took three German Developer Awards for Closer the Distance and received a Game Awards 2024 nomination for Games for Impact. Pipapo Games won the Ubisoft Newcomer Award for Map Map.
Looking ahead, Gamecity launches Portside Game Assembly on June 27, 2025, a confidential B2B conference for leading international indie studios held on a ship in Hamburg. Application windows for 2025 are March 3 to April 7 for Prototype Funding and May 2 to June 10 for the Games Lift Incubator. "Road to" applications open for Nordic in March/April, gamescom in April, and Polaris in August.
Gamecity Hamburg · 2026
Swiss Game Developers Association
