German's Hamburg has said it will be investing €2m ($2.2m) in the city's local games industry over the next four years.

The city is pledging €520,000 each year in funding until 2023, with companies able to apply for this cash in the coming months. Of this figure, €400,000 is going to be spent on prototypes as part of a new funding initiative run by trade body Gamecity:Hamburg in the second half of this year. Each project can land a grant of €80,000, with developers having to pay a quarter of the game's cost.

"Hamburg is one of the largest locations for the development and marketing of computer games in Germany," the city's minister of culture and media Dr Carsten Brosda said.

"A total of ten private and public educational institutions also train the developers and games specialists of tomorrow. With the new games funding and the incubator, we are giving founders and start-ups an additional motivation to implement their business ideas in Hamburg. At the same time, we are further strengthening the competencies of Gamecity:Hamburg with this funding and making this initiative of the Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft the central partner with extensive service offers for the games industry in Hamburg.”