Today I attended the conference on video games organized by the CAC – Consell de l’Audiovisual de Catalunya. The speakers were: 1) Josep Antoni Llopart, director of Barcelona Games World; 2) Oriol Canudas, of King; and 3) Marisol López, director of the Digital Culture area of the ICEC (Generalitat de Catalunya). I will make now a very brief summary of the issues that have arisen, which define the situation of the sector here in Catalonia.
Barcelona Games World (www.barcelonagamesworld.com) is a catalyst in the sector at a local level. Its director, Josep Antoni Llopart, explained that Barcelona has aligned the company and the university, which creates a very favorable environment for the development of the video game industry.
According to Marisol López there are 120 video games companies in Catalonia today. They employ 1,678 people and invoice 217 million euros (which represent 40% of the Spanish total). 85% of the companies employ less than 10 people (so, we might consider them as startups) and in terms of billing, 56% invoice less than 2 million euros per year. 25% of the initiatives do not invoice anything. 35% of the companies say they are developing games for virtual reality, which indicates that this new technical support is already taken into account by the sector.
At the educational level, today there are 7 video games university degrees in Catalonia, 1 postgraduate and 4 master’s degrees and a total of 737 students. In 2012, university students in the field of video games were only 105. The indicators are therefore clearly in positive evolution, also in training of new talent.
But … which profiles do video game companies need? Oriol Canudas of King has remarked that it cannot be simplified saying that we lack programmers for the sector. He affirms that in these companies a wide variety of profiles converge: producers, game testers, sound designers, narrative designers, level designers, game designers, gameplay programmers, tools programmers, 3D programmers, concept artists, technical artists, VFX artists, engine programmers, Network programmers, generalist programmers, 3D artists, 3D animators, UI artists, AI programmers, playtest coordinator, Mocap technicians, cinematics director, UX designer.
Here you have for your information the 54 companies of the sector that might be identified in the Barcelona – Catalonia Startup Hub (startups.catalonia.com) promoted by Acció.
- A Crowd Of Monster
- Anticto
- Appnormals team
- BMX The Game
- Beautifun Games
- City Nostra
- Cmedia
- Corsegames
- Cubus Games
- Deedu
- Duel4it
- Easypromos
- Eodyne
- FrozenShard Games
- Funbox Aprender Jugando
- Game Troopers
- Gameband
- Geogaming
- Ilustrum
- Inqubator Lab
- Invedars
- Kaneda Games
- Korner Entertainment
- Lince Works
- Ludium
- Macflai Games
- Manduka Games
- MasQueLearning
- Mind Tracking Technology – BRAINGAZE SL
- Ninus – BTRIPPLE 2012 SL
- No2 Web And Mobile Applications
- Omnidrone
- Overlapps
- Padcelona
- Planomi – MYKUBUK
- Play Benefit
- Playfulbet – PLAYFUL GAMING SL
- Plunge Interactive
- Pupgam Studios
- Runemals – JANDUSOFT SL
- com – LEVERAGE IQ IBERICA INTERNET SERVICES SL
- Smart Toys – SPAII EDUTAINMENT, SL
- TutoTOONS
- Uplay Online
- Voctro Labs
- Wake Studios
- Whimed
- Winko Games
- Wiprojects
- atta
- ePickbets
- juga tv
- mottomic – ARTIC LAB SL
- zinkgame – ZINK MEDIA STUDIO SL