Senator's Roundtable 2023: Hamburg

Key insights

4 slides

The forum

The roundtable aligns municipal policy with local games industry needs.

The Senator’s Roundtable 2023 is a strategic forum for collaboration between Hamburg’s government and the games industry. It identifies developer needs to inform future policy initiatives.

Support structures

The government uses the forum to refine local support structures.

Hamburg’s government utilizes this forum to refine support structures, such as dedicated funding programs and incubator initiatives. These efforts are part of a wider regional strategy designed to sustain innovation.

Refined support. The government utilizes the forum to refine support structures to maintain competitive status.

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Summary

Hamburg's Senator's Roundtable 2023 is a yearly networking and policy event in which the city's Minister for Culture and Media, Dr. Carsten Brosda, and Gamecity Hamburg invite games industry representatives to meet with city officials. Its stated purpose is to exchange information, hear the industry's needs and challenges, and develop new ways for Hamburg to support its games sector, which the city positions as a driving and innovative factor in its economy.

The 2023 edition took place on February 3 at the Senate Guest House, with the announcement published on February 16, 2023. Attendees came from a mix of large publishers, platform holders, independent studios, service providers, and education and community organizations. Named participants included InnoGames, Bigpoint, Fishlabs, Bytro, Exit Games (Photon Engine), Daedalic Entertainment, Rocket Beans Entertainment, Square Enix, Niantic, Twitch, Razer, THREAKS, XYRALITY, Mooneye Studios, Beardshaker Games, Tiny Roar, Tivola Games, Super Crowd Entertainment, Overhype Studios, and More than Sports. HAW Hamburg, Initiative Creative Gaming and PLAY Festival, and the law firm GRAEF Rechtsanwälte also took part. In total, roughly two dozen organizations were represented.

The announcement is brief and descriptive. It reports no specific outcomes, policy commitments, funding figures, or survey data, and thanks participants for a fruitful exchange of perspectives and ideas on strengthening Hamburg as a games location. The scope is local, focused on Hamburg, though the guest list includes international companies with a local presence.

The surrounding page content shows the continuing activity of Gamecity Hamburg through 2026. This includes a 2026 Senator's Roundtable at City Hall, the Games Lift incubator offering five teams 15,000 euros each, Prototype Funding applications, Road to gamescom, and the Portside Game Assembly on June 25–26, 2026. These items indicate that the roundtable is one part of a broader, ongoing support framework for the city's games industry.