BPN 1113 Dutch Game Garden

It sounds like a perfect recreational venue, but the Dutch Game Garden is a serious place for game developers in the Dutch city of Utrecht. The Dutch Game Garden will officially be launched on 19 June during the NLGD Festival of Games, the largest professional game conference in The Netherlands.

After a period of competition between cities which all wanted to call themselves Game City NL, Utrecht looks like having won the competition with a remarkable initiative. Dutch Game Garden looks after the whole chain in the game industry: students, starters and existing companies. The foundation has instituted three streams: developers club, Game Company Incubator and Business Centre. Dutch Game Garden is a concrete incubator for game companies. Presently already 7 companies with 40 employees are based in the building, while 6 organisations are on the waiting list. The foundation Dutch Dream Garden helps the companies to grow nationally and internationally and does the promotion internationally using the slogan Dutch games go global.

In the Developers Club students with various backgrounds such as game design, media, art and IT will work together on projects. Dutch Game Gardens will provide the GameLabs and the necessary finances, but also assist the students in the game contents and help them when they want to enter international competitions.

The Game Incubator will help the Dutch Game Garden’s graduates and starting entrepreneurs with setting up their company and game related business. They are helped with office space and finding investment; they will be assisted by coaches and consultants for all kind of aspects in the game industry. The Dutch Game Garden will help also with business trainings.

With the business centres the foundation will create game development hotspots. Attractive housing for larger companies is created, while they are linked to the starters in such away that facilities can shared. In the business centres access is offered to other companies, research institutes, universities and schools.

The foundation is financially supported by the ministry of Economic Affairs, the Province of Utrecht, the municipalities of Utrecht and Amersfoort. Related institutes are the HU University of Applied Science, University of Utrecht and the Utrecht School of Arts.

Blog Posting Number: 1113

Tags: games