Game on

Video games are now Spain’s favourite pastime. With an annual turnover of more than €1.1 billion, the gaming industry has outstripped both music and cinema in terms of national consumer spending and it shows no sign of slowing down. Worldwide, an estimated 2.2 billion people play games on a PC or console and, within a week of buying a new smartphone, 62 percent of us will have installed a game app on it. Candy Crush, Assassin’s Creed, Dragon City, World of Warcraft—even if you’re not an avid gamer, the names are probably familiar. But what you may not realise is that many of these games are being developed in Barcelona, and that the city is making its name in the thriving world of game design.

Spain’s video game industry has seen rapid growth in the last 10 years and, with approximately 120 game design studios employing more than 1,600 people, Catalunya is leading the way. In 2017, the region was responsible for 47 percent of the industry’s national annual turnover. At the heart of this booming industry is Barcelona, home to a rich gaming ecosystem that embraces devoted gamers, independent studios, world-class conferences, master’s programmes and a number of industry veterans who have settled in the city. Alongside these titans of the gaming world, which include Ubisoft, Gameloft, King and Digital Legends, several homegrown studios have hit the big time too. Social Point was founded in Barcelona in 2008 by Andrés Bou and Horacio Martos, and creates free games and applications for mobile and Facebook. Best known for Dragon City, Social Point is a huge local success story and was acquired by the US gaming giant Take Two in 2017 for €250 million.

Javier Capei, studio manager at Ubisoft in Sant Cugat describes the coming together of all these elements in Barcelona as “the perfect storm”. This French company has had a presence in Barcelona since 1998 and was one of the first gaming companies to set up shop in the city. Ubisoft has two studios here, which together employ more than 200 people. The Sant Cugat studio works with Ubisoft studios around the world to develop massively popular console games, such as Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Rainbow Six, and the central Barcelona studio develops mobile games. “The ecosystem creates a really positive context for us,” said Capei, explaining how it helps attract international talent to the city. Currently, around 20 percent of Ubisoft’s employees are from abroad, and Capei has no doubt that the Barcelona brand is a big draw when it comes to hiring new people. And, while many companies in Spain still follow fairly traditional work practices, in the young, international world of game design, these studios are following an entirely different model. A studio’s most important assets are the technical and creative abilities of its employees and these companies do all they can to protect those assets. “We don’t want our employees to worry about anything,” said Capei. “We pay them well, give them flexibility and look after them, so they can focus and be creative.”

Most of Ubisoft’s local employees have trained up on one of the many courses available in the city. These courses feed the ecosystem with training in all aspects of video game development, from 3D design to animation and multimedia engineering. The Universitat de Barcelona now has a specialist school, the ENTI, that is dedicated to game technology and is one of seven centres that offer master’s courses. Jordi Martin, studio manager of the Ubisoft mobile studio, points out that despite this rich training ground, when it comes to more specialist talent, it’s still necessary to look abroad. “It’s easy to find young, talented, dedicated people in Barcelona, but harder to find profiles with more in-company experience,” he explained.

87 percent of studios are small and independent, often made up of just a handful of developers, and usually pushing through with very little funding 

Key to the health of the city’s gaming ecosystem is the annual Gamelab congress, which is held every June and pulls in top industry speakers for four days of conferences and networking. Attended by more than 1,000 professionals from around the globe, it is one of the most significant events of its kind in Europe and gives the city’s gaming community huge exposure. Another important event is Barcelona Games World, which is held in November and organised by AEV (the Spanish Association of Video Games). This influential conference is a cornerstone in the annual gaming calendar. It pulls in more than 135,000 attendees and has everything a seasoned gamer could wish for, from retro games to e-sports, new releases and game jams (where small teams of developers have to create a game in less than 30 hours). It provides an opportunity for everyone in the local community to contribute and is a great platform for big names, local universities and indie developers alike.

Although the big studios are responsible for 90 percent of the market’s annual turnover, 87 percent of studios are small and independent, often made up of just a handful of developers, and usually pushing through with very little funding. Working to help these indie developers is GameBCN in the Parc de Recerca Creativa in Sant Andreu. This accelerator for indie game studios was set up in 2016 and is funded by the Generalitat and the Ajuntament. It is located in the former Canòdrom (dog racing track), an emblematic curved building that was built in 1962 by local architects Antoni Bonet i Castellana and Josep Puig. The building is protected for its cultural and architectural importance, and its transformation into a hub of digital creativity artfully retains some of its original character—the steps on which the public sat to watch the races now make for an inviting place for a coffee break in the sun. With meeting rooms, co-working spaces, a cafeteria and conference room, GameBCN provides a temporary home to six indie studios at a time. For a period of six months these small groups of developers are given space in which to work and are nurtured in the many skills they need in order to develop and market their project.

Oscar Sahun, director of GameBCN, pointed out that although their technical skills are high, few have the marketing knowledge that is essential in such a competitive industry. “Visibility is the biggest problem,” said Sahun. “More than 400 new mobile games come out every day, so it is important to build a community through A/B testing and social media, for example.” GameBCN also helps them to work more effectively: “We teach them how to organise their project, apply deadlines and meet objectives. We don’t tell them what to do and there are no restrictions regarding their game or the platform they choose. We’re here to advise and support them.”

One of the developers currently working at GameBCN is Albert Espinosa. His studio, Impressive Entertainment, is working on a game called Dungeons & Dancers, a rhythm-based puzzle game for PC and consoles. Espinosa and his colleague were already familiar with GameBCN from attending its monthly talks and networking evenings, and they have found the experience of working in the incubator gratifying. One of the biggest gains for Espinosa has been working alongside other small studios. “Before, we had our own space to work in, but here there are other people working on similar projects and there’s a lot of synergy to be had,” he said. 

Being part of the programme also provided incentive for other people to join them and the team has grown from two to seven people. “That’s allowed us each to specialise more,” explained Espinosa. The helping hand provided by GameBCN is essential to these young developers when public and private funding in Spain is so thin on the ground. “It’s particularly hard for studios that haven’t yet formed a company, as they aren’t eligible for most grants,” he continued. He added that although Spain is a massive consumer of video games—it’s the fourth largest market in Europe— the game development industry is still young and has a way to go to catch up in terms of support and infrastructure.

Sahun agrees that there is a severe lack of governmental support for the industry. “There’s support from the Catalan government, but not at a national level. And what support there is tends to be directed to the large studios.” He sees it as part of a wider issue that comes from an institutional failure to grasp how the video game market works and its importance both culturally and economically. He gives the example of educational video games, which have been paid scant attention in Spain and have failed to make inroads in schools here. “It’s a cultural thing,” said Sahun. “In the US, games are often used in educational settings, but here the attitude is old-fashioned and local schools are reluctant to introduce new technology.” Sahun also sees that local investors lack knowledge of how the industry works, making it hard for indie studios to get funding. A major role that GameBCN has is breaking down these barriers. It provides information sessions to investors, as well as a ‘Demo Day’ at the end of the incubation period, when investors are invited to see the completed games and meet the developers.

“There’s light at the end of the tunnel,” said Espinosa with a smile, referring to some small steps forward by the government. Some financial help for indie studios was announced earlier this year by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, in the form of €6.25 million to be given as grants. The maximum a studio will be eligible for is €150,000—the amount considered necessary to develop a game over two years with a team of five people maximum.

That the industry could be better supported is confirmed in a recent report by the Association for the Development of Video Games (DEV) that was published in February of this year in association with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. It considers that although some indie studios have had success, these are anecdotal, and it blames a general mistrust by financing houses of an industry they simply don’t understand. The DEV predicts that unless this changes, growth will be slower than in countries where these relationships are more fluid.

Martin of Ubisoft is of the same opinion. “In Spain, they haven’t grasped what this industry can bring. There’s a long way to go. The level of support has improved but is still extremely low. Other industries benefit from policies specifically for their industry.” He cites Montreal as an example of what can happen when local government works in unison with the industry. The Quebec government was quick to recognise the potential of becoming a powerhouse for video game development and encouraged its progress through public/private strategies and favourable policies. The result is a booming industry, which is now fifth in the world for turnover and number of people employed.

Capei is quick to point out that there are many reasons that Spain should be supporting this industry. Not only is it hugely profitable, filling the state coffers through company taxes and the taxes of a highly-paid workforce, but he considers it a model industry in many other ways. “We work with ‘grey matter’. We don’t generate any kind of waste. Environmentally we are a very clean industry.” He also pointed out that, in a region with youth unemployment at more than 30 percent, the majority of Ubisoft’s employees are under 30. And, as the industry grows, so will the number of jobs it provides. By 2019, DEV estimates that the industry will employ 4,600 people in Catalunya. 

The impact of the gaming industry doesn’t just stop at entertainment. Consumer-driven, the gaming industry consistently tests the limits of technology, from the race to create more powerful PCs to the use of virtual and augmented reality. And its continual innovation extends into other industries, from architecture to education and medicine. Games that employ movement tracking and virtual reality are used to help physical rehabilitation, combat phobias and improve mental agility in elderly people. Given that Barcelona is home to a burgeoning tech industry, it can only benefit from the synergies this innovation brings.

So, what’s the future for the city’s gaming industry? All agree that for now, at least, it’s looking bright and what it lacks in institutional support it makes up for in dynamism and ambition. Whether the country is able to ensure that this ‘perfect storm’ reaches its full potential remains to be seen. “It’s an ecosystem that if nourished will go very far,” Martin summed up.