Baltic Sea Game Incubator - Extension (BSGI)

Game incubation is key to providing new talent which is a crucial factor for an emerging industry to prosper. The main objective of the regular project BGI was to empower a booster for the BSR game industry. Game incubation as a means to secure a professional layer of young talent and start-ups is an essential booster for the game industry. BGI aimed at empowering in particular incubators through PA support actions and capacity building measures for incubation staff. The pilots of BGI revealed that game incubation does not happen in a vacuum, but in a specific incubation ecosystem. To boost incubators, the output of BGI-pilot 2 strongly recommends that the ecosystem in which game incubators operate be as much supported and professionalised as the incubation staff itself.

Producing games is an international and highly competitive business for which incubators aim to prepare start-ups with no or little entrepreneurial and marketing skills and experience. Pilot 3 of the regular project BGI, investigated the current status in the BSR regarding internationalisation strategies in incubation and cooperation between games businesses and incubators. The pilot conclusions (BGI output 3.5) strongly recommend transnational collaboration to provide high-quality training in international environments. Incubation programmes need to include ways for start-ups to achieve a higher maturity level for acting in international environments, e.g. when pitching at an international event, competing for an international award or presenting their products or services at international fairs.

The capacity building measures, pilots and network activities of the regular project (BGI) showed how little expert knowledge on game incubation and the game business in general has been organised and documented in a methodological way, thus remaining inaccessible to the larger incubation community. The WP4 of the extension will add to the quality of the capacity building impact of BGI by facilitating access to existing expert knowledge.
This roadmap is a perfect tool to demonstrate how a methodological framework that will allow to collect further information and give sustainable access to relevant knowledge of game incubation. A methodological organisation of game incubation knowledge and information will greatly maximise the usefulness of the BGI roadmap.

This will enhance the quality of the BSR incubation programmes and lead to a strengthened capability for innovation and competitiveness of the Baltic game industry.