Gamelab takes root in Barcelona to become the European Davos for video games

2023-06-26 19:40:13

He Catalan videogame sector already has large and iconic companies installed, indie studios awarded, the full support of the public administration and in tune with a society that is beginning to understand that this goes far beyond entertainment for a few. Now one of the industry’s leading platforms, Gamelabhas set the machinery in motion to reach the next level: for its annual meeting to take root definitively in Barcelona and become a European and world reference forum. The hole exists, assures the main instigator of it, Ivan Fernandez-Loboand the international reputation, it already has it.

The event, which is held from next Wednesday to Friday in the Catalan capital, has been running for 20 years and holding ‘summits’ in different cities, although always with the underlying intention of converting Catalonia in a reference territory within the sector. In Spain, the sector had a turnover of just over 2,000 million euros in 2022, and practically half comes from Catalonia, where more than 3,000 people are dedicated to it. Thus, the current objective is to make this much more manifest anchoring the meeting here permanently and making official the potential that is already attributed to it behind the scenes.

“The role it has played [este foro] There is no doubt about many of the things that have happened in this ecosystem”, says Fernández-Lobo, who does not hesitate to associate the event with the arrival of large international companies in the Catalan ecosystem. “Every week I manage companies that are not in Barcelona and they want to come, they have already come… Gamelab is one of the first points of contact, because is a well-known brand in the video game sector”, points out this person in charge.

Hence, I dream of turning it into a kind of small Davos of the video game and, what is more important, that you see this goal so within reach. “There is the potential to turn this event into something even more important and bigger, and transcend to a global European level, because in Europa that gap is not covered: there is no economic forum for the sector”, defends Fernández-Lobo, showing off one of his main desires, which is to reach the people who make strategic decisions within companies. “Our job is to reach the ‘decision-makers’, people who are genuinely interested in the catalonia project”, he points out.

an entity of its own

In order to structure the event to achieve this objective, Gamelab collaborates in the creation of an entity in which both the public and private sectors participate and that its purpose isconsolidate the heritage that Gamelab has achieved at the brand, reputation and network level”, advances this representative of the sector.

Although this project is still cooking, this year differences will already be perceived with respect to past editions of the Gamelab forum (which, by the way, was not held in person in Barcelona since 2019), such as that the link with Catalonia will become much more evident or that much more insistence will be placed on the will to work in coordination with the environment, now that it has grown so much. “You have to know how to consolidate and manage everything that is being built in Catalonia, this is not about sitting back and waiting for the snowball to just continue”, concludes Fernández-Lobo.

Gamelab will organize dialogues, debates and round tables in the MediaTIC building; will form institutional and investment meetings in the Palace of Music; and will concentrate in the main building of the Tech Barcelona meetings for entrepreneurs.