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This year's Play - Creative Gaming Festival motto is "You Got the Power". For six days, from 11 to 16 November, various venues and events in Hamburg will explore how games and politics interact and how digital games can initiate participatory processes and express opinions. 
 
"We are delighted with the great interest shown in our festival - especially from people involved in different areas of education and schools in Hamburg. It emphasizes how necessary it is to engage intensively and creatively with digital media. Our workshop program for school classes was in such high demand that we would have liked to offer double the number of places. This underlines the great interest and motivates us to mobilize additional resources in the future in order to further expand the offer in line with demand," says Andreas Hedrich, member of the festival management. "Internationally, Play is an important event where developers from outside of the mainstream who create new forms and genres in and with games can engage with the audience."

On 11 November at 5pm, Hamburg's Senator for Education, Ksenija Bekeris, will open the festival at Jupiter (Mönckebergstraße 2-4). Other guests include the President of the Hamburg Parliament Carola Veit, Green Party MP and spokesperson for media and queer politics Farid Müller, game and UX designer Mona Brandt, cosplay artist Farbenfuchs and choreographer and dancer Fernanda Ortiz. The 1st Youth Culture Summit will take place under the motto "WIR! Jetzt & hier" will take place as part of the festival on 12 November.

21 experimental and playful works can be discovered in the interactive exhibition. In addition to exhibitions featuring productions from Hamburg, a game world curated by the Young Play youth team and the five games nominated for the Most Creative Gaming Award, over 40 works from 14 countries will be on display. A jury of experts (Farid Müller, Die Grünen; Helen Krüger, Gamecity; Mona Brandt, game designer; Smo Live, Young PLAY and Sebastian Hagen, winner of the 2023 Audience Award) will select this year's winner of the Most Creative Gaming Award. All exhibited works will compete for the Audience Award. The award show, hosted by OddNina, can be watched live at the festival on 16 November at 20:00 or at the virtual festival location PLAYvalley or via Twitch stream.

At the "Indie Treff", visitors can listen to talks, play games created by Hamburg indies and network with others. At Play24, the two founders of Tiny Roar, Maurice Hagelstein and Robert Koch, will talk about their journey through time with over ten published games and at least as many cancelled projects ([full programme](https://www.playfestival.de)).

Now in its 17th year, the Play - Creative Gaming Festival combines digital games and gaming culture with media art, discourse and education. Last year it was visited by 8,500 people in Hamburg and around 800,000 people online.  

Play24 is an event produced by [Initiative Creative Gaming](/company/initiative-creative-gaming) and jaf - Verein für medienpädagogische Praxis Hamburg. Funded by Projektfonds Medien und Bildung Hamburg, BürgerStiftung Hamburg, [Gamecity Hamburg](/company/gamecity-hamburg), Bezirksamt Hamburg-Mitte, Zentrum für Schul- und Jugendinformation (ZSJ) der BSB. Supported by the Fonds für kreative Zwischennutzung von der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg and the Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft, KUTI-Spiele, FUNDUS THEATER| Forschungstheater, Kurzfilm Agentur Hamburg, Kampnagel, Indie Treff Hamburg, Mediennetz Hamburg, 105/viertel, LAG - Kinder- und Jugendkultur, play it forward, ZKBV - Zentrum kulturelle Bildung und Vermittlung Hamburg.

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"You Got the Power" Is the Motto of Play 2024 in Hamburg