- Claudio Bucher: You head the Bachelor Major Game Design programme at ZHdK and are co-founder of the successful Zurich game studio Okomotive. This year, the Zurich Film Foundation and the Canton of Zurich started funding games for the first time. How does the new funding system affect your students?
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Goran Saric: Very positively. After the bad news in the games industry in recent years, this state recognition is like a small beacon of light. Pro Helvetia has already taken on a pioneering role, but with modest means. The new funding offers real prospects, especially for our graduates who want to set up their own studio or bring their game to market. It not only reduces the financial risk, but also signals that game design is a recognised cultural craft.
- CB: What does the Film Foundation need to pay particular attention to when implementing it?
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GS: Diversity. An art game for museums has different needs than a strategy game for platforms. There are projects with an artistic core and no commercial aspirations, but also games with high market potential. It is important that both areas are taken into account, with specialised juries that can evaluate competently and in a differentiated manner. In addition to supporting young talent, substantial funding is also needed for established studios – they build up important expertise and strengthen the entire ecosystem. This ecosystem was also the subject of your baseline study – how did you approach it?
- CB: When the Cultural Affairs Office of the Canton of Zurich commissioned the study in 2021, it quickly became clear to us that we needed to take a holistic approach to understanding the interactions between film, games and media art. So the first thing we did at ZCCE was to try to bring together expertise from ZHdK and form an interdepartmental team – with, for example, Film (Manuela Rüegg), the Immersive Arts Space (Corinne Soland) and the Department of Fine Arts (Prof. Jörg Scheller). What struck me in the first interviews was that the day-to-day work of Zurich indie game designers is much closer to that of artists than you would think – from the income to the high risks of long development phases to the tendency towards self-exploitation. What motivated you to go down this path?
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GS: Probably the chance to create something of my own. Of course, the hope of financial success also plays a role, but ultimately it was always the creative potential of the medium that drove me. With our game «FAR», we created something that had never existed before in this form. This personal touch, our own signature, was what drove us. But when you've been working on a game for three years with no real financing, and family and friends keep asking, «Are you still working on that game?» then it's challenging. Our entire identity was dependent on this success.
- CB: I can well understand that. And few manage to develop an internationally successful game out of a bachelor thesis and build up a studio in the long term. I find that remarkable. From the perspective of cultural funding, I am also interested in the question of how games are categorised in society. Like films, games can be a cultural technique for processing social environments and expressing cultural identities, values and norms. What can a game do that a film can't?
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GS: Through its interactivity, a game can do something that films can't: it allows «agency», i.e. real influence on the course of events. Games like «Minecraft» enable creativity and the formation of identity. But even «Pac-Man», which at first glance is pure entertainment, expresses historically and culturally relevant design decisions.
- CB: What distinguishes games from other forms of culture for me is that they are interlinked with the internet, embedded in global communities, often with scalable business models, and above all part of digital culture – without local, physical anchor points. A large part of the local cultural funding historically flows into the «classic» cultural scene, which has existed for a long time – culture there takes place primarily in buildings, the opera, the theatre or in literary houses. With the Swiss Game Hub in Oerlikon, a new, larger meeting place for the Zurich games scene is being created this year, which is physical. What role could it play?
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GS: A central one. There are almost no public places where the scene can meet regularly in person. That is exactly what is missing. We also have a literature house, even though books can be bought digitally. I hope that the Swiss Game Hub will not only be a place of work, but also a meeting place where game creators from the region can come together with the public. And that it will become just as natural for cultural funding to create physical spaces for games as it is for other cultural sectors.
- CB: Zurich is home to large tech companies such as Google, and more recently OpenAI and Anthropic. Is there potential here for the local games scene?
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GS: There is potential, but it is rarely used. So far, Zurich games have often been too artsy for the tech companies. Collaborations in the fields of AI or creative tech could be exciting, but we have to be careful to remain independent. More intensive collaboration with the ETH Game Technology Center would also be conceivable in order to combine technical and design knowledge.
- CB: How do you see ZHdK's role in the development of Zurich's games ecosystem? How can we at ZCCE and Z-Kubator support you?
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GS: The entrepreneurial side is particularly important. Our curriculum offers little space for teaching business skills or legal know-how. Z-Kubator could address the needs of game studios in a more targeted way – for example, with industry mentors or targeted legal advice. It would also be important for us to work more closely with places like the new Swiss Game Hub to make the transition to practical work even easier for our students.
- CB: Finally, what three things would you like to see in Zurich as a games location?
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GS: Firstly, a large international game studio in Zurich, like Ubisoft, that brings expertise to the scene and provides jobs and experience for ZHdK graduates. Secondly, a dedicated animation and 3D modelling course in Zurich. Thirdly, that the new funding is truly sustainable and meets the needs of the industry.