Hrvoje Hribar: It is necessary to connect the film and gaming industries to enable better financing

That filmmakers and gamers can go together was demonstrated for the first time at a joint meeting held at the Kaptol Center. Namely, these two creative industries currently function successfully separately, with each achieving significant results both within and outside Croatia.

As such, they are recognized in their internal circles by both collaborators and users.

The total revenue of the gaming industry worldwide last year was over $85 billion, and according to projections, this year it will generate higher revenue than the film industry. In Croatia, gamers generated 50 million kuna in revenue last year, with a growth rate of 50 percent on an annual basis. Currently, about 250 people work in this industry along with another 200 external collaborators. And 99.9 percent of the entire business is exported from Croatia.

Although many think that playing video games is exclusively intended for boys, „nerds,“ they are completely wrong. The trend in the world shows that more and more women are playing games. Moreover, it is believed that there are more women than men. Thus, the target market population for game developers is approximately – from 2 to 72 years old.

Although the meeting was intended for both gamers and filmmakers, players took the lead role.

– Video games are a special world; they take a person out of the present time. We filmmakers and gamers share a common space, but not time. We are on trial. A world where time goes very slowly, like a Matrix, and it is called the Croatian and European public space. We have a great interest in connecting and opening up space, and finding better financing for game development to further unleash the imagination of Croatian gamers. We must slowly seek points of common cooperation between films and games,“ said Hrvoje Hribar, the head of the Croatian Audiovisual Center, at the opening of the meeting.

Everyone is familiar with films that have originated from video games, such as Tomb Raider and its heroine Lara Croft, portrayed by Angelina Jolie, or games that have originated from films, such as Aladdin. However, in Denmark, they have begun „experiments,“ or projects that merge film and games.

However, learning from examples of good practice – successful video games based on film stories and vice versa – the MEDIA 2007 Program introduces the possibility of applying for interactive projects, from 2007 to 2013, with an emphasis on transmedia and crossmedia.

Europe is taking a step further by merging the two subprograms Culture and MEDIA into the Creative Europe Program 2014, allowing game developers to independently apply for their own projects in the category of support for video game development. Guidelines for the development of film projects, especially those aimed at children, highlight the possibility of gaining additional automatic points if the film content expands into transmedia, or accompanying interactive content.

At the round table held as part of the meeting, it was pointed out that the gaming industry in Croatia must import people to create games because there are not enough domestic developers.

– The number of employees in the gaming industry is rapidly growing; not only programmers are needed, but also animators, graphic designers, and designers. And there is no university or any similar program that would create such personnel. In the Czech Republic, they realized how important this industry is. Four years ago, they included such a program at the university, and now they are graduating their first graduates. An urgent firefighting measure is needed to teach people how to work,” warned Ante Vrdelja, the Secretary General of the Association of Croatian Game Developers. Namely, seven or eight years ago, the number of companies engaged in video game development could be counted on one hand. Now there are already more than 40 companies in the market, and there will be more and more.