Baden-Württemberg has one of the most involved university landscapes when it comes to games and Extended Reality in Germany. From futuristic XR booths to special programmes, here are some of the strongest examples.

At gamescom, the academic side of gaming has been presented by MFG at their booth in the last years. In 2023, eyecatcher at the yellow booth in the business area had been the DIVE+ VR capsule developed by University of Applied Sciences Karlsruhe (HKA), an immersive VR booth that simulates environmental and haptic influences on the VR player. Even Economy and Climate Action Minister Robert Habeck had his turn in the machine.

The capsule is part of a bigger effort to research XR at the university: At a dedicated laboratory situated in the faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronics, the HKA is developing approaches for use in different industrial areas.

Virtual and other enhanced realities are the big focus in Baden-Württemberg‘s university landscape and one of the reasons to study interactive media in the southwest. A new concept of mixing a games and VR degree programme started in Offenburg just 2023, supervised and structured by professor Daniel Görlich. Notably, Görlich had been professor in VR research and development for twelve years beforehand — in Heidelberg, another BW city with a strong academic complex. The Heidelberg programme has not vanished of course, but is still one of the centers of southwestern VR research, with its own dedicated VR and AR lab and regular participation in Global Game Jam events. The course is now supervised by professor Anke Schuster and integrated into her media and design faculty, under the same roof as several other games-focused or -adjacent study programmes.

Extended Reality isn‘t all that universities are researching on, of course. Regular games programmes are prevalent as well, from regional institutes like media Akademie Hochschule Stuttgart, Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart and SRH Heidelberg offering Game Design bachelor‘s programmes to nationwide institutes likes SAE and MacroMedia bringing their harmonised courses to their own campuses in Baden-Württemberg. And of course, since games are neither developed nor received in a vacuum, interconnections between interactive media and other media design courses and schools are as important as pure game design.

A stable of interdisciplinary action in games, animation and film in Baden-Württemberg is the FMX — Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Immersive Media, organised by Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg. Specifically, its animation institute, cartoon and 3D powerhouse and one of the main participants of Stuttgart‘s Internationales Trickfilm Festival of Animated Film. The university landscape is rich in the southwest, and so is the choice of games programmes. And with the industry only becoming more important in all of Germany in the future, Baden-Württemberg will probably only grow its offers to young people who want to learn about and work in interactive media.

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'Take Care' is the Motto of Play - Creative Gaming Festival 2025
18th Play – Creative Gaming Festival by Initiative Creative Gaming e.V. and jaf – Verein für medienpädagogische Praxis Hamburg e.V.

'Take Care' is the Motto of Play - Creative Gaming Festival 2025

By Marcel Kleffmann 2 min read