Application Eligibility and Rules

  • The applying game start-up (the applicant) must be a registered company in Hong Kong with a history of no more than 8 years, as at the application deadline.
  • The applicant must have less than 20 full-time employees.
  • The applicant should have developed a new game and the game should be 90% completed or
  • (Newly added eligibility) games that have conducted the Pilot Testing Stage* within 9 months prior to the program’s application deadline (from May 31, 2024, to February 28, 2025) are also eligible to participate (see details below)
  • Participants from the previous editions who meet the above listed eligibility are welcome to apply (each eligible company could join the program for maximum 3 times only)

*Remarks：

    • The dedicated game is in the Pilot Testing Stage, also known as the open-beta or early access stage in the industry.
    • The applicant could gather feedback from small quantity of real paid users during pilot testing stage and based on the collected testing data, to further finetune their game play and monetization features, or the promotional strategies.
    • The applicant need to present / provide the testing data of the said game to HKDEA during interview, to demonstrate that the dedicated game has potential for improvement to enhance the game’s quality and profitability before a FULL market launch.
    • Based on the above explanation, the dedicated game should not be officially FULL launched.

Assessment Criteria

The Scheme has a quota for 12 start-ups, which will be selected by an assessment committee comprising experts in the game industry and academia.
  • Vetting to shortlist for interview: Among all collected application forms, the assessment committee will select the eligible companies to advance to an interview according to a series of objective criteria.
  • Vetting interview to select participating companies: The assessment committee will conduct interviews with finalists, which shall introduce and display the submitted new game on site and present a marketing plan for the game.
Vetting criteria are:
  • Market potential of the new game
  • Creativity of the new game
  • Performance of the new game
  • Quality of the new game
  • Marketing plan of the new game and its expected outcome
  • Marketing experience of the participating company
*If a previous participating company and a new participating company obtain the same score, the new participating company will be selected first.

Enrolment

The applicant is required to note the following:

  • The applicant must carefully read the Application Guidelines before filling in the application form.
  • The application form must be completed on a computer before being printed, signed, stamped and submitted online.
  • A valid Hong Kong business registration certificate must be submitted together with the online application.
  • The applicant must submit a new game in its application, and the game should be available for release after participate in the scheme. The applicant shall provide a trial/test version of the game for the reference of the vetting committee and/or submit a Powerpoint/video showcasing the game’s current test version for more than 1 minute. The document should be saved on a secure cloud platform (e.g. Google Drive and Dropbox). A URL linked to the downloading site of the file should then be listed on the application form so that the Association can take further actions.
  • A promotional campaign of the new game (with a budget no less than HKD 550,000) and its expected outcome must be submitted; selected companies shall later implement the promotional campaigns agreed by the assessment committee to promote the new game.
  • The promotional campaign needs to include no less than $60K “art technology element” such as Augmented Reality (AR), (Virtual Reality) VR, (Extended Reality) XR, and real time animation technology.
  • The completed and signed application form must be submitted to the online registration system on the official site along with other attachments by 1 Mar 2024 (Fri) 5:30pm. Late submissions will not be accepted.
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