📋 Tender Overview
The games industry has long been an important driver of innovation in digital transformation. Video games, e-sports and virtual XR worlds are an important part of modern media culture and a highly dynamically growing economic sector. Countless technological leaps in development, from the use of artificial intelligence to digital twins to the rapid development of computer chips, from which all areas of life and countless economic sectors now benefit, are thanks in no small part to the creativity of the pixel pioneers from the world of games.
Dr. Fabian Mehring, State Minister for Digital Affairs : “Bavaria is now home to over 350 games studios with several thousand highly qualified employees – a dynamic industry that is booming worldwide and generating double-digit billion-euro sales nationally. But so far, a large part of the added value still flows abroad, especially to the USA, Canada and Asia, where global players in the games industry have created tens of thousands of jobs and opened up billion-dollar markets. We will no longer accept this! We do not want to stand by and watch idly as others dominate the markets of the future. That is why the Digital Ministry has declared 2024 the "Year of Games" and has made Bavaria the leading games location in Germany with a comprehensive package of measures! To this end, we have increased the total funding for games and XR to a record amount of over six million euros. With this strategic offensive, we are clearly showing that Bavaria is reaching for the top positions in the digital markets of the future."
At the beginning of the year, the number of visitors to Bavaria's leading games trade fair, GG Bavaria, in Munich, more than doubled. Bavaria's games location shone nationally - also thanks to the personal presence of Prime Minister Dr. Markus Söder - as the winner and host of the German Computer Game Award in the Eisbach Studios. Bavaria's role as host for the "2024 League of Legends EMEA Championships", which filled the Olympiahalle for days, ensured international visibility with tens of thousands of visitors, attracted the top stars of the scene to the Isar and is considered one of the most important games events in the world in the coming year. The Bavarian presence at the world's leading gamescom trade fair in Cologne was also a complete success: The Bavarian reception by State Minister Dr. Mehring and the presentation of numerous Bavarian studios inspired many hundreds of guests from the national and international environment for Bavaria as a games location. Bavaria was also represented for the first time at the German Developer Award in Cologne this year with the Digital Minister as laudator. In addition, the Bavarian e-sports association was founded in 2024. As part of this, the Digital Ministry launched the "Bayern zockt!" initiative in cooperation with the Bavarian Football Association (BFV) as part of a special budget for the European Football Championship. In numerous "team nights", the members of the football clubs in the Free State were inspired to get involved in e-sports. The highlight was a professional e-sports tournament in Augsburg's WWK Arena under the patronage of the BFV President and the Digital Minister.
The high point of the "Year of Games" was the opening of "GAMEREI - The Bavarian Home of Gamechangers". With the "House of Games" in Munich, not only was an agreement in the coalition agreement successfully and quickly fulfilled, but a beacon of the games industry in Munich, unique in Germany, was created under whose roof the heart of the industry has been beating loudly ever since. All of this went hand in hand with the targeted strengthening of academic research in the field of games development and the consistent expansion of the Games/Bavaria location initiative. Finally, various industry events - from the traditional games hike to numerous studio visits by the Digital Minister to games studios across the country to WIN nights in the GAMEREI - ensured the best possible networking of the up-and-coming Bavarian games industry and its players. The collaboration with FFF Bayern and the LfA development bank was also taken to a new level as part of this year's efforts.
All of these measures have had their effect, and the relevant industry media have recently declared the Free State to be Germany's leading games location. The first international developers - for example from Italy - settling in Nuremberg also indicate the appeal of the Bavarian approach. The state government will build on this in the coming year and is pursuing the goal of entering the Champions League of triple-A game production 'made in Bavaria' in the medium term, something that has so far been largely reserved for non-European locations. In order to be able to maintain Bavaria's position as a games location in the face of all of Bavaria's efforts in global competition, the state government is once again calling on the federal government to end the two-year funding chaos in the games sector at national level and, under the leadership of the new federal government, to create reliable framework conditions for the emerging games industry in Germany that will guarantee Bavaria's games developers competitiveness on an international scale.
