Before we blast off into the holidays, we would like to thank everyone in the FLEGA family for once again being part of this amazing journey. If you appreciate the work we do and want to (keep) enjoy(ing) the many advantages and discounts we offer to our members, we’d love to welcome you (back) next year. We simply can’t do this without you.

We know we’re lovely and all, but let’s give you a couple of sound reasons to keep supporting what we do for our local games industry. We don’t toot our own horn very often, but here are some of the cool things we (helped) accomplished this year for our members and what’s still in store for 2020:

• Tax shelter! 2020 seems to be the year it’s finally going to happen. We are currently awaiting final approval from the European Commission (expected in January 2020), and we’ve already started talks with the regions about the cultural test (to decide on eligibility for tax shelter). This should be the home stretch for a very anticipated tax incentive. We’ll keep you up to speed and Flanders DC will host a special event (date TBC) to explain the inner workings of it all.
• Ongoing lobby on a national (together with WALGA and ScreenBrussels) and international (as part of EGDF) level to get get more government support for our industry and to raise our voice in different subject matters such as copyright directives and consumer protection…
• Regional lobby for the recently formed Flemish government to continue the action game plan installed by previous government.
• Upped support for educational game developers through a booth discount at SETT Convention and extensive collaboration with Flemish Cabinet of Education resulting in a dedicated “Games in class” campaign, set to launch in March 2020.

• Very first Flemish booth at GDC in San Francisco supported by FIT. Next year we’ll host the very first BelgianGames booth at GDC together with and supported by different partners.
• Discounts on national and international game events, such as GDC Conference, GameForce, 1UP Conference, Nordic Game, DICE and many more.
• A third edition of the BelgianGameAwards on February 21 as part of 1UP 2020.
• Various info and coaching events focused on funding, pitching, marketing, business development, IP protection, copyrights law, fiscality, followed by informal drinks to expand your network.

• Good press contacts and extensive PR mailing list resulting in media exposure in national mainstream newspapers and on primetime tv and radio.
• Raise awareness about fair and responsible video gaming through speelhetslim.be in close collaboration with different (inter)national partners such as PEGI.
• Extensive international communication about the goings on in our local industry through the FLEGA blog (*waves*) and social media channels, primarily our near endless tweetstorms to our almost 1750 followers.
• Map and disclose yearly facts and figures (total revenue, number of companies and people working in the sector, …) about our local industry.

As you know, we take great pride in what we do. It’s an honor to work with and for so many talented individuals who are as passionate about video games as we are. We get tremendous satisfaction out of seeing our games industry flourish. Even though we’re not directly involved with game creation, every success story, no matter how small or big, makes us feel like we were able to help out in some way.

Of course, we wouldn’t be able to do any of this without the help of our valued sponsors and partners. There’s too many to name, but you know who you are!

For the first time in six years, we’re taking a break from the blog during the holidays (and who knows we’ll even tweet less than usual). The next blogpost will be up on January 3, and we hope you’ll all be around to read it.

Happy holidays everyone!