New ideas to face the success of Valencia as a tourist city. The Valencia City Council explores how to reduce the tensions that are generated between residents and tourists through technology with recreational proposals that also keep tourists away from the center. The message is something like “there is life beyond the Lonja” and the aim is to highlight Benimàmet, but also Cabanyal or Malva-rosa, among others.
This is the idea addressed this Wednesday in València by the Las Naves conference on the video game industry and sustainable tourism, in which Explore Valencia: An Interactive Journey through its Neighborhoods is presented, a contest of interactive products linked to sustainable tourism as the main novelty. .
Its bases include the objective of rewarding that product that can present in its "mechanics and in its narrative" the concept of the "lesser known neighborhoods of the city, discarding the historic center of the city." An ideas contest aimed at young students of audiovisual communication promoted by the Valencian Academy of Audiovisual. With financing from the council and the collaboration of Las Naves, the prestigious ESAT (Higher School of Art and Technology) and OWN Connect, the new brand of the formerly called Dreamhack, the competition is national and will select three finalists.
The jury, made up of a panel of experts from the video game and tourism sector, will determine the winning project, which will have a financial award of 6,000 euros (taxes included) for the production of the also called “minigame” over the next three months. Likewise, an external executive producer will supervise the development and will direct all phases of the project - development, script, etc. - to guarantee the quality of the winning video game.
The second prize will be awarded with a mentoring offered by ESAT worth 1,200 euros, from July 15 to 19, in online format, and the third finalist will receive an accrediting diploma. The AVVA's intention is to be able to promote the final project on the big screen before the screening of family films so that it reaches a diverse audience.
This proposal is an example of the commitment that the local government has made to the video game industry, to which it wants to give special prominence. “We have a very powerful video game industry recognized internationally and we want to take advantage of this advantage to position ourselves as València Game City,” said yesterday the Councilor for Tourism, Innovation and Investment Acquisition, Paula Llobet.
There are around thirty companies from different fields that have joined the proposal and Llobet hopes that next year the number of participants can double. With a municipal budget of 150,000 euros, Llobet explained yesterday that its implementation “is just the beginning of a series of actions to position Valencia as a global leading city in the video game and eSports sector.” The headquarters will be located in the recently inaugurated Harinera, a space that wants to be the nerve center of innovation in the city and where the council wants to place the meeting point for professionals, students and companies in this emerging sector.
In the ecosystem there are already prominent agents with whom the City Council is now allying itself, such as Encom, a Valencian company specialized in gaming with whom the Las Naves municipal innovation center has signed a collaboration agreement, or the firm K2, which has recently installed in Valencia after purchasing the local company elite3d. In addition, there are other companies based in the city working in the sector, such as the startups Codigames, Chibig, Inverge Studios, Superlumen or Blackmouth Games that grew from Lanzadera.
This initiative will also foster the connection with Madrid with whom the City Council already proposes synergies in cultural matters. Now they will be addressed with the Madrid video game cluster and with the “Madrid In Game” program, and there is no hiding the intention to participate in international events to “improve the visibility and recognition of València”, on a national and international scale.
