With its funding line Innovative Tools and Business Models, Creative Europe Media is awarding €7.7 million to Media projects, of which almost two million went to German games tools or initiatives by BlueBottle, Second Stage and SpielFabrique.
The Creative Europe Media funding line “Innovative Tools and Business Models” supports the development of technologies and business models that have the potential to increase the visibility and availability of European works and boost the competitiveness of the European audiovisual industry. In this rounds funding, a total of 7.7 million euros was awarded. Of the ten projects funded, four are mainly led from Germany. The German companies will receive a total of €3.2 million for the development of their projects. German companies are also involved as partners in two other projects and will receive an additional 430,000 euros from Media for this.
Based on gaming projects, almost two million euros go to German tool and innovation producers, split onto three projects.
With €1,212,316, the second-highest funding amount from the call goes to BlueBottle, Munich sister company to Irox Games, both managed and co-founded by Marcel Zurawka. “BlueBottle is an e-sports content production and graphics tool,” says Zurawka. “It offers real-time data collection, aggregation, and visualization for e-sports games by accessing low-level data from the working memory. We use this to improve the viewer experience through in-game visualizations and to enable new sponsorship opportunities.” The integration of the audience is intended to make the streaming experience more multi-layered and at the same time offer streamers new opportunities to monetize their content. BlueBottle had recently hired up, with Caroline Flesch joining as Senior Business developer.
Second Stage from Berlin is receiving €564,253 for their TRACKS project, a fact that was already revealed by the company in June (we reported). The tool is a marketing intelligence platform to help PC and console game developers and publishers optimize marketing strategies based on data. Second Stage CEO Christian Szymanski: “We are delighted that Creative Europe has selected our project. TRACKS brings together marketing, reporting, and attribution data for game developers and publishers, providing clear insights into campaigns to enable data-driven decisions.” The project fills important gaps in the European gaming market in the areas of campaign analysis, attribution, and performance measurement. With features such as full funnel attribution, custom KPIs, and AI-powered analytics, TRACKS helps marketing teams make informed decisions, increase return on investment, and operate more sustainably.
Additionally, European agency SpielFabrique based in Düsseldorf and Berlin is participating as a partner in “Gara - Revolutionizing Gaming Distribution Between Europe and Africa” and will receive €153,275 for this. The French company Gara is leading the project.
