New partnership in a new industry

Within the RECONOMY program, Help signed the cooperation agreement with the Serbian Games Association (SGA) to support capacity building of small and medium-sized enterprises in Serbia and the region. The pilot program will be implemented through several training modules with a focus on fundraising and increasing investment in the gaming industry in the Western Balkans.

The agreement was signed by Help in Serbia Country Director Aleksandra Brkic and the SGA Program Director Relja Bobic.

According to Relja Bobic, the video game industry in Serbia, although still relatively young, has been growing steadily for several years. SGA has been following the growth trends annually based on many parameters like number of employees, the turnover, number of released games from Serbia, the highest income territories, and many others. Annual reports on the growth and development of the gaming industry are being published by the SGA since 2018.

“Based on the relevant data, the annual growth is around 20 per cent, which is a really good result compared to some global growth of the gaming industry. And what we need most is to raise the capacities of companies and teams, and, of course, to educate young people about the gaming industry as a serious potential career path” said Bobic during the signing of the contract.

On the occasion, the Country Director of Help in Serbia, Aleksandra Brkic emphasized:

“Sweden-funded RECONOMY program and Help contribute to the improvement of business processes and services, a skilled workforce and promoting the regional brand by stimulating competitiveness in the private sector. The growth and development of small and medium enterprise teams involved in the development of video games and related products and services are crucial in the further development of the gaming industry in these regions”.

Asked about the SGA’s expectations from RECONMY program and Help, Relja said:

“We expect to achieve our common goals in terms of further support to the gaming industry in Serbia. We will focus on business development and financing skills development, primarily of the teams at the very beginning or those who already have developed at least one product and now should scale. There is a causal link between the success of games, companies’ projects and their growth, and thus the creation of new jobs”.

In the coming months, SGA will develop and implement training packages (finance, crowdfunding, venture capital, angel investor, mergers, acquisition, soft skills and similar) in Serbia and the surrounding countries, with Help and the RECONOMY intended for the SME gaming industry teams ready to scale their businesses. The development and realisation of training hybrid events will be accompanied by intensified activities of integrated communications to increase the visibility of these training packages and to attract more participants from the region.

This training will improve the capacities of the small and medium enterprises in the gaming industry and their knowledge and access to finance. This will bring not only an increase in the income of SMEs in this sector but also the employment of skilled labour among women, youth and other marginalised groups in creating inclusive and sustainable business development in the gaming industry.