GDS 2018: JP Van Seventer - Building a Game Ecosystem and Accelerating a Game Development Country
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The Netherlands game industry grew from less than 30 game companies in the 90-ties to over 500 game companies today. Dutch Game Garden (DGG) was founded to facilitate the new generation of game companies with an incubator and cluster building. In 10 years DGG boosted over 150 game companies and helped create 500 jobs. JP will talk about the impact of an incubator for Indies and Serious games, (national) events and the impact of educational programs focussed on game development, the need for game business education, how to get government support and align with regional goals and what is the difference between economic development funding and cultural funding.
JP van Seventer is Managing Director at Dutch Game Garden (Utrecht, The Netherlands) where he directs the first dedicated game incubator-accelerator in Europe. After a career in designing educational kids games (Redcat) and games for teenagers (My horse and Me), he incubated the start of game companies such as Ronimo Games (Awesomenauts), Vlambeer (Nuclear Throne, Ridiculous Fishing), Abbey Games (Reus, Renowned Explorers) and Ragesquid (Descenders). In the serious games, he’s mentored the founders of Active Cues, Tovertafel and managed innovation projects in games battling obesity and games improving patient safety in hospitals.