Copenhagen Gaming Week: A growing hub for the Danish gaming industry and digital talent

What is Copenhagen Gaming Week?

Copenhagen Gaming Week is a festival that brings together the entire broad gaming industry – players, developers, creators, brands, trade unions and associations – in one festival where everyone, regardless of age, gender and background, can help shape the experience. Participants can meet the industry and stakeholders, playtest the latest games before their publication, and hear presentations from experts in the field.  

The goal is to inspire participants to explore and geek on at home, whether it's board games, gaming or coding. The festival is not just about watching – it is about participating - and gaming and its interactivity are the perfect medium for this! Just in the third year of the festival, it has managed to gather over 30,000 participants!

Focus on Danish culture and economy

The first thing you meet when you enter the entrance hall are Danish game developers, such as. Bitfire Games, but also education (and youth) developing games such as ITU, STU specialists andSTU Sputnik.

The festival thus highlights and supports the national culture and economy – which often do not have the same financial muscle as international studies. This also underlines the importance of organisations such as NIMBI – the Danish Institute for Game Development and why several EU countries could benefit from similar structures and initiatives.

NIMBI: Motor for Danish Game Development

NIMBI – the Danish Institute for Game Development – works to promote originality and quality in Danish game development and to strengthen the culture of good games. The Institute awards DKK 15 million annually and has supported more than 90 games since its founding in 2007.

The aid is mainly given in the early stages of development, where new companies often find it difficult to find financing because their product is not yet mature. NIMBI thus contributes directly to innovation and entrepreneurship in the industry. The requirements for the productions are few – but if NIMBI’s support represents a significant part of the funding, the game must be able to be played in Danish.

An industry in explosive growth

The gaming industry has experienced a 74% growth in employment! It sounds almost too good to be true, but the numbers hold, and they don't stop there - Copenhagen Gaming Week hosted a presentation on the Danish gaming industry (read the interview with Niels A. Wetterberg, Director Games Denmark), where it was highlighted that:

• 79% of all Danes have played digital games in the past year
• Despite its small size, Denmark has released more than 4,000 games
• Today, the industry is a billion-dollar business in continuous growth

In fact, the gaming industry is a much larger export than the Danish film industry – which receives more attention and financial support. Perhaps the reason for this is that the massive international audience of Danish games can make it more difficult to define how “Danish values” are expressed in the products. Nevertheless, this is precisely the core task of NIMBI.

Digital workforce in demand across the business world

However, the industry's significant growth also poses a challenge: The demand for digital skills is growing faster than the Danish education system can keep up with and many industries are competing for the same specialists. Partly because of this, the Danish gaming industry employs many from Sweden.

At the conference we heard, among other things, that the screens in modern electric cars are often programmed in the game development software Unreal Engine. The skills of the gaming industry thus prove to be essential in far more sectors than gaming.

There is a need for those who have not previously seen the value in the development of digital skills and gaming communities to become aware of this. It will be exciting to follow developments in the coming years.

Why is Copenhagen Gaming Week a good practice?

In the first three years, the event has received public support to set up – and with more than 30,000 participants this year, it is clear that it has been successful. This suggests that the conference could be more on its own in the future. However, experience also shows that if similar festivals are to be established in other countries with a focus on strengthening national entrepreneurship rather than large multinational companies, it requires financial support in the start-up phase.

Copenhagen Gaming Week serves as a symbiotic ecosystem:

• Commercial game developers, university students, and secondary schools present their projects side by side
• Networks are created between education and the labour market
• Developers are given the opportunity to playtest their games and observe audience reactions in real time
• Participants (including many children and young people) meet production companies, educational institutions, and trade unions in the gaming industry

Thus, the path from interest → study → labour market → union becomes concrete and visible to the young people, who get inspiration for a career with digital skills.

Possibility of replication throughout the EU

The model for Copenhagen Gaming Week has already inspired other countries. An example is the Play! Bergen Festival in Norway, which builds on a similar approach to strengthening local game development and digital culture.

Good practices from the festival

• Interview with Danish Xbox League's foreman Tom Binder
• Police Online Patrol
• Interview with Niels A. Wetterberg, Director of Games Denmar and Hans Oxmond, CEO and co-founder of Bitfire Games
• Interview with Jørgen HK Jepsen from Esport Denmark
• STU Sputnik
• STU Specialists

The long list of good initiatives that get a platform at the festival is just another example of the importance of initiatives such as Copenhagen Gaming Week, which binds users/citizens, associations, education, and industry together. Digital skills start with interests and are shaped together!