Regional offices

The regional offices represent the games industry locally. Through its closer cooperation with existing regional associations and the founding of new regional offices, game – the German Games Industry Association supports the games industry regionally. The objective of the regional offices is to represent the interests of the games industry at the regional political level with designated contact partners and clear positions. This is a response to the increased political interest in the games industry not just at the national, but also at the state level.

In the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria and Hesse, there are established regional associations which do important work locally and with which game cooperates very closely on an ongoing basis. In certain other regions, there are more recent initiatives working to promote the local games industry. game is concerned with strengthening these cooperative efforts. Where regional associations or initiatives don’t yet exist, game will help by joining with local actors in founding regional offices. The aim of this involvement is to significantly increase the presence of the games industry at the regional level all over Germany.

Networks like the ones named are especially close partners of the games industry. By initiating regional offices, game seeks to provide additional support for the important work of the networks and the funding institutions. As public institutions or at least as direct funding recipients of the respective state, these play a decisive role in supporting the games industry, but they can’t make political demands. As a result, there is a clear division of tasks between the networks and the regional offices. In the ideal case, all three essential components will at some point be present in a region: 1. the sponsor, 2. the network and 3. the regional office.

No, the regional offices don’t initially need to be structured as independent associations. Rather, their simple and unbureaucratic structure is intended to help formulate demands quickly and directly at the local level and to represent these vis-à-vis state policymakers. With its own structure, game can provide important help in this. With regular, ongoing cooperation, it is conceivable that regional offices will be founded as formal associations in the future. It will be up to the local actors to decide whether that would be useful.

The regional offices decide independently how to organise their work. New formats often won’t be necessary where there are existing network events or regular local gatherings, which can instead be used to formulate concrete political demands. These demands can then be represented by the local contact partners officially and on behalf of the entire industry.

No. Independent developers and dedicated students are also invited to get involved in the work. However, in order to coordinate the close integration of political demands at the state and federal levels, the official contact partners at the regional offices are always game members.

Depending on the region, game supports the work of the regional offices by providing information and contacts, and in some cases direct assistance in setting up the offices. The fact that most local actors are already members of game is helpful in this work. game also supports the regional offices in formulating political demands and establishing contacts with the local political decision-makers. The development funding programme is a concrete example of this. In a number of federal states, there are also plans to introduce a regional funding programme. In such cases, the funding experts at the game association office assist the regional offices in articulating their demands. In doing so, they draw on the experience of other regions and ensure that regional efforts can be coordinated with the development funding programme at the national level.