The allure of a successful video gaming product is very strong and game developers from all over the world aspire to create the next Fortnite.

Malta has its own aspirations: to be the place that facilitates the next success story. Thus, a series of products like the digital nomad residency permit, reduced taxation and financial support in the form of tax credits, have been rolled out and are being offered to companies which want to make Malta the base in which they set up their game development company.  A full list of incentives can be seen here.

Developing the eco-system

Being so small, Malta’s advantage is that it is nimble and responds quickly to opportunity. The island has a history of aligning all its resources to capture opportunities that appear on the world stage, early in the bud. The huge success of the online gaming industry, which is a major GDP contributor to the Maltese economy, only happened because the island leveraged its EU membership to open an escape route from the tight monopolies that were to be found everywhere else in the EU.

What followed was a reorganization of other aspects of Maltese institutions and this included the education sector which immediately started to prepare the local workforce for participation in this industry.

Today, although all EU countries have their own online gaming licensing regime, Malta is still a powerfully attractive jurisdiction because it has the human resources needed to furnish the skills required by the gaming eco-system. This social experiment has been replicated several times in the soft and the non-soft industries. For instance, Malta won an initial aviation servicing contract by a major airline on the promise of – among other things – the creation of a new aviation engineering faculty on the island. The same approach is being taken with the digital gaming industry, and an important strategic alliance was announced in February 2022 between the GamingMalta Foundation and Unity. Unity is the internationally leading platform for real-time 3D game production and operation.

Undergraduate and post-graduate courses in Digital Games are available at the University of Malta, using the Unity Game Engine. The international Unity accreditation is now ranked in the top 20 Digital Games courses worldwide. This has given rise to a highly skilled digital gaming workforce possessing key skills that are in high demand in the sector.

More reasons to choose Malta

Malta’s tax laws are EU compatible, with swift and friendly administration and the island provides a reliable regulatory framework, legal structure, and anti-money laundering standards.

Apart from the above, Malta makes use of the Euro, has an English-speaking workforce and freedom of movement in EU and Schengen countries

The country also offers top quality health services and a warm climate with extensive flight connections around Europe.

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