Despite the video game industry’s lasting boom, there is still enormous creative potential to be tapped. This is why the future belongs to start-ups with innovative game ideas. However, the path from the first playable version to a market launch is often long and fraught with obstacles, which is precisely where SpielFabrique comes in.
SpielFabrique is an accelerator program for start-ups and young entrepreneurs on the gaming market—the first of its kind in Germany. Our program is based on a comprehensive mentoring package and a first-class network of companies, gaming experts, investors, and established creative industry partners. Together, we help game developers to achieve their goals in a more professional, rapid, and effective manner. We promote game concepts and prototypes with great cultural and commercial potential. Our support covers both game development and marketing, as well as financing.
With our high-quality online and face-to-face coaching sessions and hands-on workshops, we offer the best foundation for participating teams to professionally establish their companies and, ideally, bring their ideas to market in just a few months.
Odile Limpach and Thierry Baujard are not only the founders of SpielFabrique but also act as mentors for the project teams. These game industry professionals with international experience make their unique network of experts and investors from the German and French gaming sectors available to selected teams.
Odile Limpach teaches economics and entrepreneurship at the Cologne Game Lab of the TH Köln (Cologne University of Applied Sciences). At the same time, she works as a strategic consultant for serious games and cross-media projects. From 2007 to 2014, she was the managing director of Blue Byte, a German entertainment software studio. Before that, she was Ubisoft GmbH’s managing director. She completed her studies at the ICN Business School in Nancy/France and earned her MBA in the USA. In addition, she acts as a foreign trade consultant (CCEF) for the French Ministry.
Contact Odile Limpach: odile@spielfabrique.eu
Thierry Baujard is the CEO of Media Deals, a pan-European investor network for the creative industry. He actively supports companies and investors in the video game industry in obtaining financing at trade fairs in Paris (Game Co), Berlin (Games Week), and Istanbul (GIST) and co-finances various international projects in the fields of video games, films, and music. In addition, he participated in the development of the European guarantee fund for the creative industry for the European Commission and the European Investment Fund. He is also the managing director of the consulting firm peacefulfish and the director of the film music publishing house Just Temptation. Previously, he worked for the French media group Vivendi in London, in Los Angeles, and at Studio Babelsberg near Berlin. He launched the Franco-German video game initiative in 2015.
Contact Thierry Baujard : thierry@spielfabrique.eu
SpielFabrique stems from a Franco-German video game initiative created in April 2015 by Media Deals at the French Embassy on the occasion of the International Games Week Berlin. In addition to several important partnerships that have been formed since its foundation by Odile Limpach and Thierry Baujard, SpielFabrique has close relationships with the Franco-German Youth Office (FGYO/ OFAJ/ DFJW) and the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW. Beyond any commercial work priorities, SpielFabrique has therefore set itself the task of encouraging and strengthening the transfer of know-how and intercultural exchanges between German and French participants, while giving them access to valuable information about the German and French video game markets.
SpielFabrique aims to support at least five German and French start-ups per year. Our goal is to support around thirty companies within five years.
Since 2017, we have also been working closely with ARTE and the city of Strasbourg to develop a market for the Franco-German co-production of video games.
