The risk with this approach is that tax breaks go to projects like Chris Roberts’ Star Citizen.
UK public is in a sense subsidizing Star Citizen.
And the formal justification for their current tax breaks (not related to the announced initiative in the article) is that SQ42 and Star Citizen somehow represent (promote?) British culture. I am not even joking.
Consdiering the PPE, the Ferries, HS2… Spending immense amounts of money on projects that never get finished seems to perfectly align with british culture.
I wonder how much of that money will go to indie projects. Most will probably just go to microsoft and amazon.
£30m is basically pocket change to Amazon and Microsoft, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they drain the fund anyways before closing the studios the funds were intended for.
I have a friend who is a solo dev. He applied for some funding once and was denied because he said he intended on using it to pay himself. They told him it’s not just free money for anyone saying they’re making a game; it’s meant to support businesses. He would need to incorporate, have monthly expenses, and multiple employees. I’m assuming this funding also works like that. It’s stimulus for the economy, not funding for art projects.
So, grab some friends, make a shell company, reapply, get money while delivering nothing?
Governments hate this one weird trick!
Fraud
My first thought as well. And while the mention startups explicitly
A new £30 million Games Growth Package over three years to back the next generation of start-up games studios and talent, …
the fund needs to be protected, so it can do its work.
In order to get the “content” (aka “make the game”) grants (at least recently when I applied) you needed to have at least 2 PAYE employees working on the game AND have the other half fully funded by non grant means.
Solo Devs are rejected out of hand and that seems incredibly short sighted. I am biased though.
Not sure if it is possible in the Uk but in many countries solo devs can apply for art or culture grants. Which in my opinion is a more appropriate grant. Since this grant is a business grant that aims to spur economic activity aka create jobs and not just to get an end product made.
I looked into arts council grants and they just flatly do not do game development, sadly
Solo Devs are rejected out of hand and that seems incredibly short sighted
Without someone breathing down the neck of the solo dev at least once a week, I can totally see why the govt would rather avoid them altogether.
Already got the landlord and energy companies lording it over me…
Would like it if they had a loan option or similar. Business loan was the only option left, grants come in tranches anyway, could have just had milestone based grant tranches.
To be fair, it used to be THE place for game development and publishing.
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