Kyle Patrick Camilleri
Sunday, 4 January 2026, 08:00
Last update: about 52 minutes ago
“Gaming” in the Maltese islands is typically understood as referring to iGaming, otherwise known as the gambling and sports betting industry. Many might be unaware that serious works are being carried out for Malta to become “a home for gaming excellence” – the world of gaming that includes e-sports, video game development, and immersive technologies.
The CEO of the GamingMalta Foundation, Ivan Filletti, told The Malta Independent on Sunday that the global video game industry – known as the “interactive entertainment” sector – is larger than the film and music industries put together and that “it dwarfs iGaming internationally” in terms of annual global revenue. GamingMalta is essentially responsible for the strategies and policy efforts of the gaming sectors.
In Malta today, aside from some local talent making a name for themselves in the video game world, such as Anvil Game Studios, Flying Squirrel Games Malta, and others, there are between 25 and 30 video game studios that have set up shop in the Maltese islands in recent years. Deriving from different parts of the world, including Israel, the UK, France, Germany, and Ireland, most of these studios are indie companies; among them, Malta has become home to AAA company 4A Games as well.
Malta is also aiming to be a home for gaming events to be organised. Earlier this summer, a competitive Counter-Strike event hosted in Malta raked in a total of 66 million live online viewers with a peak viewership of 800,000 people, for a total of 17.5 million hours watched, Filletti said. In addition, a three-year contract was signed in August for e-sports tournament organisers BLAST to host nine major e-sports events in Malta. This deal includes utilising a 5,000 square-metre e-sports arena in Ta’ Qali and setting up a 1,000sqm studio for their operations.
Regarding the 66-million viewership total from this August, Filletti remarked “Can you imagine the return of investment for Malta when [viewers] are seeing the GamingMalta logo, videos of Malta, and shots of the islands?”
“We brought ESL to Malta where Counter-Strike pro league seasons are played. Top tier e-sports teams came to the islands, we were never on their radar before,” Filletti stated.
Even some renowned e-sports teams, such as Furia, Imperial E-sports, and OG Esports, are relocating to the Maltese islands as activity within the video game and e-sports world continues to develop here.
Filletti stated that since works to build this sector from the ground up began in 2019, “the sector is still small.” He said that the sector is still nascent as the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic in the early 2020s slowed down the potential for these studios to relocate to Malta. GamingMalta is incentivising the movement of video game companies into Malta, despite this sector’s forced slow start, through its own incubator space known as “Basecamp” and other means. Basecamp is advertised as a “soft landing ground,” operated by GamingMalta, for gaming companies and video game developers to initially set up before growing and opening their own offices in the Maltese islands.
The foundation is promoting the Maltese islands as an ideal home for the video game industry, in hopes that the Maltese islands can become a global leader on both gaming fronts in the long-term. It does so by advertising Malta as a “well-connected,” sunny destination with beautiful beaches and steep history; Malta’s rich history can be very inspiring to game designers, with one e-sports company founder telling Filletti on one occasion that Fort St. Elmo reminded of him of a CounterStrike map.
“It’s all about the story that we are creating and showcasing that Malta welcomes this. It’s not just about tax. The fact that they can sit down with us, they can speak to us about their business plans, and we’re supporting them – we’re helping them to find talent, we’re helping to give them space, we’re helping them from Malta Enterprise. It’s a sum of all parts, there is no particular silver bullet, it’s relentless,” Filletti said.
The GamingMalta Foundation was originally founded to consolidate and build up the iGaming sector in Malta. GamingMalta CEO Ivan Filletti believes that “Malta is the Silicon Valley for iGaming,” with 14,000 people employed in this industry contributing 7% of Malta’s gross value added (GVA). Today, it works to sustain, build, and consolidate this ecosystem, Filletti said. The GamingMalta Foundation was founded by the Maltese Government and by the regulator of the iGaming industry, the Malta Gaming Authority, as a non-profit foundation to promote gaming in Malta. Nowadays, it is working to promote both avenues of gaming through the consolidation of the iGaming sector and the nascent building of the interactive entertainment sector.
Filletti acknowledged that we need to continue communicating the potential of this gaming sector as well as the pace at which it is growing in Malta, which is why part of GamingMalta’s strategy is to get this message across and let people know that video game development is becoming part of the country’s gaming fabric.
He said that GamingMalta’s mission to embrace the world of interactive entertainment in Malta has received cross-party support by both sides of the Parliament, the Opposition and the Government. Given this full political backing, led by the Ministry for the Economy, Enterprise and Strategic Projects, Filletti said that “no-one is holding us down” in striving for the aims tied to this sector.
Hence, GamingMalta is “relentlessly” working to build up the interactive entertainment sector in Malta by building ecosystems. Filletti commented that if video game companies need investors, access to education (through connections with MCAST, the University of Malta, as well as Unity and Unreal Engine), rights to produce something, “it’s here.”
Among the talent that has already moved to Malta or Basecamp in the past half-decade or so are Exient, who have co-developed various Angry Birds titles; Keywords Studios, through which the studios Electric Square and Sperasoft have set up; people working on the Metaverse; and in a few more weeks, top Roblox design agency Feenix will come.
Some of the companies that have already come to Malta have had a hand in developing some of biggest video game franchises in the world, including the EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA) games, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassin’s Creed, The Sims, The Elder Scrolls, Mafia, Diablo, and many more.
“We never had this on the island before because we started at ground zero, you could say,” Filletti said.
Filletti said that in 2019, his Foundation decided to look at the broader church of gaming, beyond the gambling and betting industry, into what Maltese authorities refer to as interactive entertainment. As to why this decision was taken, Filletti mentioned the country’s need to develop new economic niches and said that “it was nearly a natural fit that we’ve built an iGaming ecosystem, so why don’t we build a video game ecosystem?”
In this regard, he noted that an investor looking into iGaming will still look to Malta for video game developments; however, he admitted that the greatest challenge for this to happen is for all this to be known.
“We are working hard to get well-known for this. It’s not always public that there’s all this activity going on at the moment,” he said.
Filletti observed that video game studios are reaching out to build relations with the iGaming sector to potentially ameliorate the games they have to offer on their respective platforms. He pointed out that with the Maltese islands looking to embrace both of these sectors in its long-term future, “Malta can serve to bridge that gap.” He believes that Malta has its own unique selling point and a great opportunity in this regard.
Additionally, Filletti commented that Malta is “very unique” in that the “gaming” moniker here is applied to both the gaming and iGaming sectors. He stated that he does not see the “shared” gaming term to act as a deterrent for the interactive entertainment industry’s growth in the Maltese islands.
The GamingMalta CEO remarked that through this journey, Malta is not only looking to garner economic activity through video games and e-sports by bringing in key players within the international scene, it also wants to ensure this activity by support the development of local grassroots teams. This is all enshrined within Malta’s Vision 2050, in which “Digital & Gaming” is seen as one of the seven high-value sectors that is envisioned to significantly increase Malta’s GDP by 2035.
Filletti is confident that Malta will succeed in becoming an international home for this gaming industry, even if Malta is competing against larger jurisdictions like France and the UK, and even financial juggernauts such as the United Arab Emirates and billionaire Saudis. A subsidiary group of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund acquired ESL Gaming – one of the world’s largest e-sports tournament organisers – for a sum of €1.7 billion. Despite this international competition and not buying into this sector sooner, Filletti believes that “Malta is going to win on this, and we’re winning it already.”
“We were never on the map of these people at all. Today they say they’ll come to Playcon next year. 30,000 people came to Playcon this year, that’s no joke,” Filletti said.
The GamingMalta head was asked to give the main barriers Malta must overcome to reach its goals for this gaming sector. Filletti mentioned competing with larger and richer jurisdictions, especially since Malta only joined this race in 2019; ensuring that we “always” have adequate funding and funding initiatives to grow the sector; and guaranteeing that Malta can entice talent to come here by marketing the country as a destination to nurture and back them.