The federal budget, which is to be ratified by the Bundestag in its third reading on Friday, provides as expected and announced an increase in federal funding for games and – surprisingly – support for the Womenize! initiative.
"Die Initiative Womenize in der Games-Branche werde mit 400.000 Euro jährlich gestärkt" (The Womenize initiative in the games industry will be strengthened with €400,000 annually). This sentence appears unexpectedly in the linked documents on the Bundestag's agenda for this coming Friday, when German parliament will proceed to the third and final reading of the 2026 budget bill. Like many other sectors of the economy, the games industry is confident about the passage of the budget, as it includes an increase in the budget for the funding of games to €125 million.
Changes to this or other items are not expected. The major hurdle for all projects is the so-called adjustment meeting of the budget committee, at which numerous items in the budget plans passed by the government are reallocated and changed. The federal game funding was not the focus this time. "We are very pleased that the German Bundestag's budget committee has confirmed the federal government's plans to strengthen game promotion. The government and parliament are thus sending a clear signal: Germany should become a stronger location for games with internationally competitive framework conditions," game Managing Director Felix Falk told GamesMarkt after the adjustment meeting.
However, according to the preliminary version of the budget committee's report that has now been published, there were also numerous changes in the budget of the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space, which is responsible for games. Overall, the committee increased the ministry's funding by more than €500 million compared to the original plan. The individual items are not known in detail, but the report (printed matter 21/2063), cites the support of Womenize! as an example.
This is not the first time that parliamentarians in the Bundestag have taken measures on their own initiative to support the games industry. In fact, federal funding for games was once on the brink of being scrapped because the budget was not included in the draft budget of the then responsible minister, Andreas Scheuer, and only found its way into the budget as part of the parliamentary process.
Womenize! started in 2015 as an event during International Gamesweek Berlin and developed over the following years into an initiative and community that also organized independent events in other cities, including Cologne. Like all event formats, Womenize! experienced a massive setback due to the coronavirus pandemic and, after a few digital attempts, returned as an onsite event in 2024.
