After three years in Amsterdam, Casual Connect Europe will be holding a conference in Hamburg, Germany. The move comes with many mixed feelings for us as we will always associate Amsterdam with the beginnings of the Casual Games Association.
We love Amsterdam. The locals have always made us feel welcome, and the sites for our conferences have consistently been top-notch. This year, however, we will hold our conference in the largest venue in the center of Amsterdam—and we will still be filled to overflowing. Even so, since we held the first Casual Connect conference (then known as Casuality) in 2006 we have come to realize that, as long as the city is accessible and the locals are friendly, the people who attend our conferences are what really matter.
Hamburg is Germany’s foremost media and IT industry location with a workforce of more than 110,000. For over ten years now, companies from throughout the media, IT, and telecommunications industry have received special support from the city-state of Hamburg through the special public-private partnership Hamburg@work, which is supported by the Ministry for Economic and Labor Affairs.
Through their gamecity:Hamburg initiative, Hamburg@work has provided considerable support to the 150 local gaming industry companies and has even provided logistical support and office space for the Casual Games Association staff while in Europe. In preparation for the move, Hamburg@work’s Uwe Jens Neumann and his team have attended the Seattle and Kyiv Casual Connect conferences and will be available at Casual Connect Europe in Amsterdam to meet with CGA members who have any questions about Hamburg.
In addition to their support of the CGA, gamecity:Hamburg will also offer services to Casual Games Association members in order to make cooperation with Europe through Hamburg as seamless as possible.
Services available*:
1. gamecity:Port—Sixteen affordable offices in the St. Pauli district available for lease.
2. gamecity:Funding—Up to €100,000 in seed money is available as an interest-free loan for Hamburg-based entrepreneurs to assist them in producing commercially viable prototypes which can be used to secure funding from publishers.
As if that weren’t enough, there is this unexpected bonus: Generally speaking, flights from the U.S. to Hamburg tend to run several hundred dollars less than flights from the U.S. to Amsterdam.
You’re going to love Hamburg. We already do.
For more information about Hamburg@work and gamecity:Hamburg, please contact: Stefan Klein (telephone: +49 40 22 70 19–41; email: Stefan.Klein@hwf-hamburg.de).
