Since its beginnings in 2014 the Ludicious Game Festival in Zurich has been growing every year: this year over 100 game developers and business insiders participated in the most important networking and exchange platform for video games in Switzerland. Pro Helvetia is part of the Festival’s board and supports young studios in Switzerland. As the game industry in Switzerland is young and still evolving, here are some reasons why this b2b event plays such an important role:

The game industry is facing major changes in questions of market consolidations. There are only a few big players left in the industry who can spend millions for blockbuster games. Hence, there is space for small indie studios in the midfield with independent games. Even though the Swiss game industry is quite small, it already has gained a reputation of high quality. Tobias Kopka, the artistic and programme director of Ludicious defines the festival as typically Swiss: «Quality over quantity».

Funding is challenging for small game studios, and as a result, there is often no budget for marketing or PR once the game is developed. Ludicious offers plenty of workshops, talks and panels to support the studios: This year, «How to think PR» by Peter Jakobsen (Nordic PR) or «Self-defeating Subtle Marketing» by Esben Kjær Ravn (Kong Orange) showed how to promote a game even with a small budget.

The Ludicious Festival offers a familiar atmosphere for game developers to get in contact with decision-makers from the industry: over 250 matchmaking meetings took place during the festival’s three days. A selection of studios got the opportunity to pitch their games during the «Ludicious Business Accelerator» in front of publishers, marketers and industry executives. One of them is Zurich-based studio Indoor Astronaut with their game «Unrailed», who is also part of the SwissGames delegation going to GDC (Game Developers Conference) in San Francisco 2019.

The Ludicious Festival is the place where creativity and commercial potential come together and create a unique atmosphere for all participants.