Christophe De bont 
26/11/2021The mission of FLEGA has always been to facilitate and empower our local video games ecosystem. Whether by weighing on crucial decision making or spreading the word about the groundbreaking products and experiences created by our local studios, it’s always been about making sure Flemish video games were able to thrive.
Working with limited resources, we feel like we’ve done a good job so far. Nowadays, Flemish video game talent has a lot more chance at success and while we wouldn’t dare to claim sole credit for this, we like to think we helped contribute to that fact.
Flemish video games have grown up, and so we need to follow suit. That’s why we’re very happy to announce that FLEGA has signed a 5 year structural partnership with Flanders Investment & Trade. This means we are now officially a FIT partner (link in Dutch). By combining our respective networks and knowhow, we make a formidable team that will work towards putting as many of our locally nurtured video game developers on the map internationally.
The viewpoint of FIT is clear: internationalisation leads to the growth of Flemish companies which in turn leads to more job opportunities, a project called Flanders Accelerates. Combining forces with every actor in Flanders is of crucial importance. On top of that, foreign investments strengthen the credibility of the Flemish economy and spur on growth of Flemish ecosystems. We believe our local video game companies, who are offering services and create products that are international by their very nature, will be able to play a big role in the coming years.
So how do we plan to go about this? There’s the shared efforts to get as many local video game companies on the worldwide stage of international video game fairs, such as GDC and gamescom, but we’ll also work towards attending more non-video game related fairs and FIT-organized missions to better explore cross-sectoral opportunities (such as the royal economic mission to the US delayed from October to June).
Apart from that, we’ll be able to sketch out an internationalisation strategy for our sector. It’s our goal to enhance international appearances and present our video game sector as attractive as possible to foreign investors.
The ink has yet to dry on the signature, so it’s still early days, but the excitement is already palpable. This is an important step in FLEGA history and a unique chance to blossom alongside our talent. There’s plenty of work, but we can’t wait to get our hands wet. A huge thank you to everyone at Flanders Investment & Trade and their CEO Claire Tillekaerts for believing in us, to Flemish Prime Minister Jan Jambon for the ratification of the agreement, to our appointed FIT account manager Karla Laheye and finally to our General Manager David Verbruggen and board member Jeroen Janssen for coordinating with the FLEGA board.
Let’s create some waves!
