Recap: Gamecity Hamburg at Polaris 2025

Key insights

5 takeaways

01
Gamecity Hamburg hosted its largest-ever booth at the Polaris Convention 2025, held October 10–12 in Hamburg, to showcase the regional gaming industry.
02
The exhibition featured eight distinct Hamburg-developed titles, ranging from educational software and VR experiences to family-friendly racing and mature-themed games.
03
The Gamecity Treff networking event at the Grüner Jäger attracted over 230 industry professionals and utilized structured speed-meeting sessions to foster regional collaboration.
04
The showcase was part of the 'Road to Polaris' program, which facilitates direct player feedback for local developers and provides visibility to government officials, including First Mayor Peter Tschentscher.
05
Gamecity Hamburg utilized the convention to provide targeted resources on funding, training, and career pathways to support the growth of the city’s games sector.

Summary

Gamecity Hamburg's presence at the fourth Polaris Convention, held October 10 to 12, 2025 at the Hamburg Exhibition Center, is recapped as its largest showing at the event to date. Polaris spanned more than 30,000 square meters of booths covering games, manga, anime, and pop culture, and the organization positioned the show as a home-city opportunity to promote local development talent.

The Gamecity Hamburg booth sat in the Sandbox Area between the Indie Arena Booth and the Retro Market and offered eight playable stations under its "Road to Polaris" program. The featured Hamburg-made titles were Ed & Edda: GRAND PRIX – Racing Champions (Tivola Games), Mambio (neurodactics), Map Map – A Game About Maps (Pipapo Games), NeverLight (Nightless Games), Super Chipflake Ü (SalsaShark Studios), The Amusement (Curvature Games), The Regreening (Positive Impact Games), and Vacunauts (Godcomplex Games). The lineup ranged from a math-learning app for children and a family multiplayer racer to a VR mystery experience and a dark fantasy challenge for adults. Visitors could play solo or in multiplayer and speak directly with developers. Hamburg's First Mayor, Peter Tschentscher, visited during a convention tour and met the studios. The team also provided information on funding, training programs, and career paths in the local industry.

Activity continued off the show floor with the Gamecity Treff on Friday evening, co-hosted with sponsor photon at the Grüner Jäger in St. Pauli. More than 230 developers and industry members attended the networking event, which included an optional speed-meeting format. The next Polaris is scheduled for October 2026.

Related news items on the page indicate ongoing programming, including the Games Lift incubator offering five teams 15,000 euros each, Prototype Funding, Road to gamescom, and Portside Game Assembly on June 25–26, 2026. Curvature Games has since released The Amusement.