GamePreneurs
game studio accelerator
Astana Hub's accelerator for game studios and teams from Kazakhstan and the CIS — mobile and PC games. Over 16 weeks teams go from prototype to publishing- and investment-readiness: preparation, market research, development, validation on real players and launch. Decisions are made on data: retention, cost per install, payback. The programme is operated by Creata Games; on 3 October the teams pitch to publishers and investors at AI & Digital Bridge.
On now14.09
- Dates
- 16 weeks, September — December 2026 · pitching on 3 October · Demo Day on 17 December
- Where
- Astana · Astana Hub, pavilion C4.6 · pitching at EXPO IEC
- Format
- offline
- Partner
- Astana Hub
Roadmap
Programme roadmap
Applications
Applications on the Astana Hub site until 23:59 on 31 August, Astana time.
Diagnostics and admission
Application screening, mentor interviews and a practical task. Open Day at Astana Hub on 21 September, then the cohort decision and participation agreements.
Pre-Accelerator
Team building: teams of 2–5 and roles, Unity and the production pipeline, the idea and core loop, idea defence.
10 projects pitch at AI & Digital Bridge
The forum's Pitch Zone, 15:00: ten GamePreneurs teams show their projects to a jury from the industry and publishing.
- Happening now
Accelerator
Discovery → Build → Validate → Launch: MVP, playtests, user-acquisition tests and soft launch. Every week: a mentor session, master classes and a checkpoint.
Demo Day
Finalists show their product to publishers and investors, with one-on-one meetings.
Rules (short version)
Rules (short version)
- 01Who it is for
Teams of two or more with a working prototype, not a concept: mobile (casual, mid-core, hyper-casual) and PC games. Readiness to work full-time in the programme and to be at Astana Hub. Release experience, prototype metrics and game jam participation help.
- 02Format
16 weeks, September — December: diagnostics and admission, Pre-Accelerator and Accelerator up to Demo Day. In person at Astana Hub plus online mentoring; out-of-town teams get accommodation in Astana.
- 03Metrics
Mobile-game unit economics: D1 and D7 retention, cost per install (CPI), LTV to CPI. The LTV/CPI ratio tells the team what to do next: stop, pivot, scale cautiously or scale aggressively.
What teams get
15 masterclasses from industry practitioners, 200+ hours of mentoring — two mentors per team, a user-acquisition testing budget, analytics tools and workspace at Astana Hub for the whole programme, accommodation for out-of-town teams, and access to publishers and investors.
Experts and tools
Masterclasses and reviews are run by industry companies: Playrix, Mytona, OGames, Grand Mobile, Play Ventures, AppQuantum. The teams work with Adjust, Sensor Tower, GameAnalytics, Firebase, Unity and Figma.
Why
To close the gap between the region's talent and global publishers and investors. The accelerator is one link in a single funnel: schools and jams → incubation → GamePreneurs → publishing → investment.
Pitching on 3 October
The accelerator's teams pitch in the Pitch Zone of the AI & Digital Bridge forum to a jury of studio and publishing practitioners.
The 3 October programme ↗Mentors and experts come from
22 industry mentors and experts: game design, production, publishing, art, user acquisition. Experts join when teams need them.
- Lipsar Studio
- Cyber Temple
- VINCI
- Creata Group
- Creata Games
- Glera Games
- World Chess
- SHU
- GameDev Center
- Borsyq Games
- Regional Centre of Folk Art
- OMNIUM
- Toy Duman
- Mytona
- Take Top Entertainment
- FrontlineVR
- Topchan Games
- Synthetic Domain
- Cyberia Nova
Pitching jury, 3 October
19 years in the games industry, from artist to art director. Runs a workshop on 1 October and sits on the pitch jury on 3 October.
Speaker profile →
Co-founder of Cyber Temple; the city-builder DarkSwitch was shown at Gamescom, Future Games Show and GDC. Previously PayBox.money (FreedomPay) and Kcell.
Speaker profile →
14+ years in mobile games, 6.5 of them in user acquisition: Social Quantum, Playrix, Mytona.
Speaker profile →Materials