Just Playing – Games in Berlin

Berlin boasts some 350 companies in the gaming sector, including international headquarters for big name studios. More than 4,000 employees are creating more than €400M turnover a year in the industry. There are several educational facilities and institutes with gaming related subjects, many international trade conferences and events, as well as networking associations. 

Due to the strength of the gaming scene and Berlin as an international talent pool, especially for developers, games studios from all over the world are opening offices in Berlin. For instance, in mobile games alone there is King (Candy Crush Saga), Kolibri Games (Idle Miner Tycoon), Popcore (Parking Jam 3D), and Wooga (June’s Journey), all subsidiaries of international games publishers.

Two companies that have recently come to Berlin are Trailmix Games and Metacore.

Trailmix Games from London are famous for the free-to-play mobile game “Love & Pies”. This is Trailmix’s first game and the whole experience gives players a sense of all the passion and love for detail that went into it. In this casual “merge” game, you guide the protagonist Amelia on a comic adventure to solve the mystery of who set fire to her family’s café, “merging” bakery ingredients on the way to “make tasty treats even sweeter”.

Co-Founder and CEO of Trailmix Carolin Krenzer believes in creating an inclusive, diverse, supportive and safe environment based on trust and respect. We spoke with her and her new Berlin Creative Director Christopher Parschat and Berlin Studio Director Annelie Biernat. When asked why they chose Berlin, they said, 

“I think Berlin chose us. Firstly, Annelie, Christopher, and the rest of the team live in Berlin. They are not only incredibly experienced and talented, but also share the same strong values and believe in our purpose as a company. We knew that we had to work together.” 

“Post-Brexit, Berlin allows us to hire a lot of people from within the EU”

“Secondly, Berlin is an incredible city, and I would argue that London and Berlin are the most exciting, diverse, and interesting cities in Europe, so it was a great match. Berlin allows us to tap into a whole new talent pool, and post-Brexit, it allows us to hire a lot of people from within the EU, whom we would not easily be able to move to London. Lastly, I am originally from Germany, and after having lived abroad for the last 20 years, it's fun to reconnect with my country of origin.”

Metacore came to Berlin at the end of 2023, their first location beyond their Helsinki HQ. Probably their biggest reason: to find talent. Their most famous game is Merge Mansion, and the ‘feature team’ in Berlin is initially to produce new content for this game. 

Metacore’s player-first way of making games is strongly apparent in their signature game, which has cracked the 50 million downloads mark. Merge Mansion is a free-to-play puzzle game in which you have to find hidden objects which, as the name suggests, you can merge, meaning you proceed by mixing different items into new things. All that is embedded in a mystery story of a family, Maddie and her grandma Ursula, to engage fans beyond the game. 

We asked Mika Tammenkoski, CEO and co-founder of Metacore, why Berlin? 

“Berlin not only has some of the best game developers in the world, but is also a hotspot for creative industries and entertainment. …

“Our main reason for expansion is supporting our growth and talent attraction. Metacore has grown extremely rapidly over the past years – scaling our team from 15 to over 200 – and getting the right talent on board is the biggest bottleneck of our growth. When we started looking for cities to expand to, Berlin felt like a natural choice: it’s a strong hub for games, but also has lots of talent working across tech, entertainment and the creative industry at large. An added bonus is of course the close proximity and small time difference to our Helsinki HQ. We want everyone to feel included at Metacore and our culture, and Berlin offers us a great opportunity to expand while keeping the new Metacoreans close.”

“Here, pushing the industry forward seems like a joint effort.” 

Mika continues, “Berlin has a strong reputation for being a games industry hub – and even though we’ve only just dipped our toes in the ecosystem, we can already see why. Here, pushing the industry forward seems like a joint effort: besides the around 300 game companies in the city, there are a lot of gaming-related study programmes, events, funding and institutional support even on a senate level. Berlin wants to grow the number of game companies and people working in games and it's seen as a future industry. We can’t wait to learn more from and contribute to this vibrant ecosystem!”

Making Relocation Fun

As Mika mentions, Berlin offers founders as well as companies looking to relocate a wealth of assistance. Not least, Berlin Partner provides support across the board with all the issues such a move brings, giving information on the games industry in Berlin, providing hands on help with talent-related topics, making introductions in the industry to institutions and networks, advising on the subsidies available in Berlin, supporting office search, and giving extra visibility on the Games Capital website. 

Berlin Partner’s relocation manager Birgit Reuter says, “Berlin is playing on ever higher levels in the international games industry and getting more and more high scores!”

To reach out to Birgit for free consultation and advice, connect with her on Linkedin or send her an email. 

Read the full interviews with Carolin and Mika on the Games Capital website.

Header image: ideogram