January the 16th, 2024 – The long awaited and much anticipated Novska gaming campus is now finally moving forward in a very significant way.
As Josipa Ban/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, finally, all the prerequisites have been met that will enable the start of construction of the Novska gaming campus.
“The design process has been completed and all six building permits have now been obtained”, revealed the Regional Coordinator of Sisak-Moslavina County, the institution that is responsible for this extremely ambitious project.
Further details as things currently stand haven’t yet been publicly revealed, as they’re set to be officially presented at a press conference on January the 17th in Novska. That upcoming presentation will be attended by two ministers – the minister of labour and the minister regional development and EU funds, in addition to the project manager and partner.
The Novska gaming campus is being claimed to be a strategic state project. It was first presented four years ago, and it should contribute very significantly to the economic revitalisation of an often overlooked county which was also deeply affected by the earthquake, as well as strengthen its competitiveness.
The Novska gaming campus promptly received the support of all of the relevant institutions, but as it happens in Croatia, the process of obtaining all of the necessary permits took a little longer. Now that all of the correct permits have finally been obtained, the public procurement procedure for the construction of the campus, which will be built on an area spanning about nine hectares, should finally be announced in the first quarter of this year.
It is expected that work on its construction should begin this year, and the value of this huge project is estimated at around 50 million euros. It has been stated that it will be financed from the Just Transition Fund. It is an important project not only for Novska, but for Sisak-Moslavina County as a whole. It also represents the logical continuation of a promising story that has been being built in that city since back in 2018, when the PISMO Business Incubator was first opened, specialising in and focused on the development of companies in the field of video games.
Mario Čelan, the former director of the SIMORA Development Agency, was the one behind this initiative, and his idea was to make an obscure, small Slavonian town the gaming centre of Croatia. His plans came to be despite the fact that at the time when he started the project, there was not a single company in Novska that was engaged in the production of video games.
Today, 80 startups operate within PISMO. The analysis of their business for 2022 shows that 50 startups generated impressive revenues of 821 thousand euros. The whole story should gain even more significance with the opening of the Novska gaming campus, which should consist of facilities related to the opening of a studio, a student dormitory, an eSports arena with 4,000 seats, and a gaming industry accelerator.
The idea is to implement a five-year higher education programme on the campus with 50 students per year and a high school programme attended by 24 students per year. All those within the campus would have accommodation provided for them. A canteen, conference hall, and sports hall would also be built. Many more details will be known after the official presentation of the entire project.
