SAGA Barcelona Game Fest returns in October promoting Catalan language

SAGA is rebranding as the SAGA Barcelona Game Fest, the largest video game festival in Spain, and will be held at Fira de Barcelona in Montjuïc in October. 

The event will be held from October 9-11 and aims to make the city the meeting point for video games in southern Europe. 

One of the main objectives of this event is to promote the use of the Catalan language in the video game sector. 

“We want it to be a benchmark for communities of gamers in Catalan and we are working to make it a place where those communities can gain new members, be discovered by the public and interact with each other,” explained the general director of Language Policy in the Technological and Audiovisual Areas of the Catalan government, Roger Serra.

With this in mind, Catalan will be the official language of the SAGA Barcelona Game Fest. 

Around 60 video games in Catalan and most activities will be in the language. 

This event comes with the work of the BCN Game Fest, promoted by the Catalan Institute of Alternative Leisure and New Technologies (ICOA), RetroBarcelona and the SAGA Saló del Gaming organized by Plataforma per la Llengua. 

The organizers expect to receive more than 20,000 visitors for more than 80 activities spread across different spaces. 

Conferences and round tables, as well as professional and international speakers have been organized. 

There will also be university centers and schools specialized in video games with their own stands at the event. 

The guest country of the event is Japan, and will see a lot of participation from delegates from there. 

It will also feature internationally renowned studios and publishers such as Devoler Digital, The Behemoth and Super Rare Games. 

Some of the most prominent figures in the gaming industry such as the author of the soundtrack for the Suikoden saga Miki Higashino and the composer Manami Matsumae will also be in attendance.