Swiss Game Hub Starts 2025 With More Space and Strong Support From Zurich

After five years, the non-profit organization Swiss Game Hub has moved into a new office. In addition to gaining more space, the developers are also working on a new mentorship program.

Supporting each other, exchanging know-how, and networking in the then still young and small Swiss games industry—these were the goals in mind when a group of developers in Zurich founded the Swiss Game Hub five years ago. Since then, much has changed in the games industry in Switzerland, particularly in Zurich. Space had long been at an issue, leading the Swiss Game Hub to relocate to a new property at the beginning of the year. The new location offers significantly more room for creativity and innovation, as Sebastian Tobler, Co-President of the Swiss Game Hub, shared with GamesMarkt.

Tobler also discussed the mentorship program established at the hub. Four games—Bämeräng, Ultimate Godspeed, Next Player Please, and Plank Builders—have already been developed with the program’s support. Currently, three additional titles are in development. However, the team has decided to take a short break to further refine the mentorship program, with plans to resume later in the year, as Tobler reveals in the following short interview. He also speaks about the tremendous suopport of the city of Zurich.

GamesMarkt: How much additional space does your new location offer, and what is the current demand for co-working space?
Sebastian Tobler: The new location offers more than 3 time the space of the old one, including 10+ meeting rooms, two of which are suited for larger groups. It also offers almost 800 square meters more office space compared to the old one. We're seeing high demand for the fixed co-working space, where people can have their own, fixed desk, and are almost fully booked on that front. We're however still reserving room for game studios to move in, even larger ones, up to 15/20 people, and there's also still a space in the open, flexible part of the co-working space, which is also accessible to non-gamedesigners for the first time.

In addition to the co-working space, you are also revising your mentorship program. What prompted this decision, and when do you expect it to be ready?
When we've started our mentorship program, it focussed strongly on the model that a lot of our founders have experienced themselves: Coming out of school and then turning your bachelor's project into a "real" game. With the new mentoring, we want to be more open towards different paths towards game design and also provide a more tight, focussed mentoring experience. We're currently "beta-testing" our new mentoring model and expect it to be ready around Summer.

How do you assess the state support for the Swiss games industry, and why do you believe it is important to also engage and network regionally and locally, as with the SwissHub?
We've started the Swiss Game Hub because in our own experience, it's crucial for an industry to create clusters of know-how and a place for people to connect. While technology has enabled a lot of communication to happen remotely, we've come to realize that being under the same roof together creates a different level of connection, motivation, sharing of know-how and enables a lot of the soft-factors that make or break an ecosystem. The fact that the city of Zurich has enabled us to do this in a larger scale in the next 5 years as an interim use of the Werkhalle 87S is maybe the biggest state support the industry has received so far and we're very grateful for it.