Five weeks from today, on Tuesday, April 21, 2015, the INTERNATIONAL GAMES WEEK BERLIN will be opened at Kino International by Brigitte Zypries, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The Opening Summit is the kick-off event for Germany’s leading communication and networking platform for international game developers, publishers, investors and representatives of the entire media industry. In the six days between April 21 and 26, more than eleven events – suited for professional visitors and game enthusiasts alike – are united under the umbrella brand INTERNATIONAL GAMES WEEK BERLIN.

The Opening Summit connects politics, media and public institutions in Germany and Europe with the international games industry. Subsequently, the renowned French game developer, Quantic Dream CEO and Chairman of the European Games Developer Federation, Guillaume de Fondaumière (“Heavy Rain”, “Beyond Two Souls”, “Fahrenheit”), will discuss current developments and political conditions of the games industry from a European perspective.

Esteemed industry experts from Asia, America and Europe will discuss the economic, technological and cultural aspects of the games industry. Representatives from the areas of mobile games, online marketing, eSports, design and development, such as the Lebanese game designer and co-founder of Wixel Studios (Jounieh/Lebanon), Reine Abbas, Manish Agarwal, CEO of Reliance Entertainment Digital (Mumbai/India), Noah Falstein, Chief Game Designer at Google (San Francisco/USA), John Robinson, Managing Director at Nexon M (Los Angeles/USA), Rob Pulciani, Director of Worldwide Marketing at Amazon Appstore (New York/USA), and Ralf Reichert, CEO of ESL/Turtle Entertainment (Cologne/Germany) will be involved in the Opening Summit. The panels will be hosted by Nicole DeMeo, CMO for glispa (San Francisco/USA). Journalist Fumiko Lipp will be the host of the day.

As part of the Opening Summit, five of the 14 categories of the German Video Game Awards will be presented: In the afternoon, the nominees for “Best Game Design”, “Best Innovation”, “Best Production”, “Best Serious Game” and “Best International Multiplayer” will come to know whether they have won. The other award winners will be announced on the same night at a gala event. The German Video Game Awards are a partner of the INTERNATIONAL GAMES WEEK BERLIN and, at the Opening Summit, will be represented by Dorothee Bär, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure.