Danish game developers need to get better at business
The Danish games industry particularly depends on private funding, and to get this game developers must think business to reach success. In 2021, Game Hub Denmark is preparing the workshops and seminars, that can ensure game developers possess the required skills, when they reach out to international investors.
Theme: Road to Funding
Game Hub Denmark’s workshops and seminars in the first half of 2021 focus on business and funding.
This initiative is a response to the industry’s evaluation of the Danish game developers’ ability to attract capital to game productions and companies.
“Investors’ and publishers' assessment of the Danish games industry’s strengths and weaknesses clearly indicate that there’s room for improvement on the business side. That is why we also think that this is one of the primary factors being an obstacle for attracting more funding to Danish game developers,” says games advisor Jesper Krog Kristensen from the creative business cluster, Vision Denmark.
Denmark must outperform their competitors
COVID-19 caused the industry’s landscape and traditions to change day by day at the beginning of 2020. Everything went digital, but for the game companies who have been searching for funding, this transformation has not made their job any easier.
International investors are less trigger happy and fund more scarcely during COVID-19. The reason is that they need the physical meeting with the game companies, to ensure that they’re investing in the right product and team. Even though everybody can Skype, Zoom and so on, the digital meeting fails to succeed at concluding a deal.
Under these circumstances, it is more difficult than usual to attract the investments necessary for the Danish games industry to thrive. To reach these, the Danish games industry has to be better than their competitors from the rest of the world, who have access to investors locally as well as public funding.
“The Danish games industry is left without substantial public funding as one of the only one in Europe. Despite the enormous business potential, it causes a structural risk for the industry’s growth, so us from Filmby Aarhus enthusiastically welcome and support the Road to Funding-initiative, that can support big and small game studios in finding their way to the private capital markets,” says Christian Nyhus from Filmby Aarhus who, among other things, supports game developers in the incubator ‘GamesLab’.
It is not enough to have a good original game. Game development is often driven by creativity and passion, but the business side is ruthless because of the massive competition. Game companies therefore need good businesspeople on their team, who must know their trade.
“Business is just as important as having a good product, but it takes hard work. We wish to focus on precisely this process in the first part of 2021, so we offer companies support with input, workshops and seminars required to ensure game developers’ path towards securing funding,” says Allan Abildgaard Kirkeby, business developer at Game Hub Denmark and Dania Academy.
More information:
Contact Jesper Helleskov Sørensen, games advisor at SEA Aalborg University:
+45 99 40 71 93
jhs@adm.aau.dk
You can read more about Game Hub Denmark’s “Road to Funding” here.