GamesTalents Launches Application Phase With New Website

School students between the ages of 13 and 16 from all types of schools can apply for the nationwide GamesTalente competition organised by Bildung & Begabung and the Stiftunhg Digitale Spielekultur until the beginning of April. The competition is supported by the Mercedes Benz Fonds.

To mark the start of the submission phase, GamesTalente has also revamped its website. In a virtual village, school students interested in participating in the competition can find tips and tricks. The submission deadline for GamesTalente 2025 is 4 April 2025.

Entries can take any form related to games—texts, drawings, sound recordings, or videos. Team participation is also possible. A jury of experts will select the best submissions, and 50 young people will have the opportunity to attend the GamesTalente Academy in Weil der Stadt, near Stuttgart, from 26 July to 2 August. There, they will develop their own game projects with professional support. GamesTalente is an initiative by Bildung & Begabung (Education & Talent), Germany’s central institution for talent development, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and under the patronage of the Federal President, as well as the Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur (Digital Games Culture Foundation), a subsidiary of game.

The project, which has been running since 2019, is financially supported by the Mercedes-Benz Fund. "We were convinced by the approach of using games and their development to promote digital skills in young people—engaging with them in a low-threshold and accessible way that aligns with their interests and lives. The GamesTalente project also combines this topic in an innovative way with a broad range of creative and personal development opportunities, while reaching a target group that rarely engages with traditional STEM funding formats on its own initiative," says Elisabeth Viebig, Head of Corporate Giving & Memberships in the Corporate Citizenship division at Mercedes-Benz.