I realized the first time I played this that Stefan von Spielburg was homage to the famous film director Steven Spielberg, and I conducted a Google search specifically for this, but no one seems to notice the Spielburg thing. If you did, though, I would be very interested in knowing how and when you figured it out...

The connection seemed pretty obvious to me when I spoke to the beggar in QFG1VGA.

There's an oscar among the loot in the brigand leader's office, in QFG1VGA.

The name "Speilburg" is not a reference to Steven Spielberg. "Spiel" means "Game" and "Burg" means "City" in German, so it's German for "Game City." This is confirmed in the first Gabriel Knight game, where you can learn the German word "Spiel" for no reason other than to learn where Spielburg got its name.

It can be both.

Stefan von Spielburg is definitely a reference to Steven Spielberg.

Maybe the Coles thought it was funny that Steven Spielberg's name was German for "Game City" even though he never designed any games, and they wanted to use that humor in a game.

Spielberg means Game Mountain, actually.

"Berg" and "Burg" are two different words.

Oh I get it. So maybe they thought it was funny that Steven Spielberg's name had "game" in it even though he never designed any games, so they designed their first game around that idea. They changed the "e" to a "u" because they thought it would be easier to have a game like this in a city instead of a mountain, but they named the Baron Stefan Spielburg to make it clear that they did want to tip their hat to Steven Spielberg.

As I said earlier, the Beggar's amusing line about the cider being called "Amblin Entertainment" was a dead giveaway. When I first read that in the VGA version, it immediately evoked that famous company logo (which is surprising since I've never bothered to watch E.T.). The city/mountain analogy sounds interesting now that you folks mentioned it, but I think the Coles' intentions were clear.

Now that I think about it, Mount Zauberberg (where Erasmus lives) could have been named Spielberg.

Perhaps, although the creators were probably aiming for something magic-related.