The video game sector has been present at Peninsula’s everyday life for some years now, thanks to the activity of GameBCN, the video games incubator that this year has held a 6th edition marked by the global pandemic.
Over the past half year, GameBCN’s team has worked closely with 5 selected teams from around the world to bring their independent video game design and distribution projects to life, and the effort and the results were reflected last 22nd of September during the program’s Demo Day.
Celebrated with an online broadcast in YouTube and also with a small gathering of promoters in El Canòdrom, the official headquarters of the program, the Demo Day put an end to six months of funding, training, workshops, talks and mentoring designed to guide the participating indie studios in the development of their projects and advise them on business and marketing issues.
“GameBCN’s formula has proven itself effective edition after edition, and the teams are very happy with the results“
A telematic and international Demo Day
The five studios from GameBCN 6 (DC1AB, Invincible Cat, Viral Studios, Mansion Games and GROUND), with members of different parts of the world, were able to show their progress and present the demos of their video games to the general public through a live streaming in YouTube.
Besides, after the event some members of the teams celebrated a good-bye session to share some learnings about what had worked and the things that could be improved facing future editions of the program.
This Demo Day is indeed a reflection of our commitment to innovation in the gaming sector and the hard work of the participants, who have received knowledge in programming, design, marketing and sales to create and promote their video games, as well as funding to keep moving forward in their path to success.
Facing the future of the sector
Parallel to the Demo Day streaming, a little event was held in the facilities of El Canòdrom, our consultancy’s old headquarters, closed to the public and respecting all the current health measures.
This event had as guests some representatives of Generalitat de Catalunya’s Departament de Cultura, Regidoria de Turisme i Indústries Creatives and Institut de Cultura de Barcelona, as well as some sponsors (Socialpoint and Gameloft) and members of the academic community from UPC and ENTI.
The goal of this meeting, besides of concluding and evaluating the sixth edition of the incubation, was to analyse the video game landscape and the next steps in the sector’s innovation to determine how to keep supporting this industry and its growth in our country, adopting a multidimensional approach that included all the stakeholders involved.
Seventh edition on the way
After six editions, 37 incubated teams and 2.5 million euros of funding raised by the teams, at Peninsula we are certain that GameBCN has a very promising future, that’s why we have already opened applications for the seventh edition of the program, to continue discovering talent in the video game area and turning Barcelona into a reference hub in the gaming field.
On the other hand, GameBCN is also collaborating with the Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals (ICEC) to offer a new mentorship program aimed at companies whose activity is related to video games.
This line of up to 12 hours of mentorship will provide customised advice in law, funding, strategy, marketing, production, publishing, distribution, monetisation or human resources for free to the participants, in a similar way to the work carried out during the incubation program, but with a more specific framework and a shorter duration (until the end of 2021).
iGi: internationalising the sector
As we say, GameBCN’s formula has proven itself effective edition after edition, and the independent developers teams are very happy with the results of the program. That’s why, some months ago we bet on international expansion through a Japanese version of the incubator.
Together with the multinational Marvelous, GameBCN set out to launch a version of its program in Japan, called Indie Game Incubator (iGi), and after such a productive first edition, the Demo Day of which will be held next 26th of November, a second round of incubation is already confirmed, that will help to keep fostering innovation and creativity in the video game industry on a global scale.
At Peninsula we are very grateful to have such direct contact with the entrepreneurial ecosystem and to be up-to-date with gaming, a growing sector, which allows us to collaborate in the development of innovative business initiatives and to keep going and learning along the way.
