Gaming is booming. In 2020 the industry generated 179B US-Dollars. A year where everyone was at home and most sectors suffered losses, gaming came out as the winner and is set up to crush 200B by 2024, according to a new study of Newzoo. Now Germany wants to secure its part of the pie with a massive investment of 250 Million Euro or 295 Million US-Dollars into its local gaming studios.

“We are ready to invest in our gaming ecosystem. Not just a little bit, but massive amounts per game, once we’ve figured out that a company is a right fit “, says Andreas Scheuer, minister of transport and digital infrastructure. Germany crossed 3.5B in gaming revenue in 2020 and secured jobs for 60.000 people. “We see gaming as a tremendous growth sector for Germany with specialists bringing digital expertise into all fields of technology, especially the car or medical industry, “says German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Gaming is not just a cultural asset, but an innovation driver, and we intend to unlock the full potential. “

The German Government showed first signs of a willingness to give tax credits as well, which helped Canada to secure its number one spot as a game development center for the world. “I’ve visited multiple gaming startups, and it’s clear that they need support to grow. We’ve already started and had programs in the planning stages to fuel this growth. It’s important to strengthen the games industry as part of our entire creative economy “, strengthened Germans Chancellor in a Youtube video. Publishers took notice, Ubisoft has already built a massive office in Berlin that is currently working on multiple franchises such as James Cameron’s Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. “We want our three studios in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Mainz to shape and further develop their own local identities, as our number of employees in Germany may well double within a short period of time,” says Benedikt Grindel, Managing Director of the German Ubisoft studios in a press release. Up to 1000 employees are supposed to work in Berlin by 2023.

Ubisoft, Epic Games, and multiple other large scale gaming companies are also currently working on a “Ready Player One “style metaverse. FiPME is working on an economic backbone for such metaverse allowing players all over the globe to trade their items on the world’s first item exchange that works on matching algorithms close to New York Stock Exchange. FiPME is owned by Swiss Holding Cow Level AG, which is currently running its first funding round.