The organization Creative Europe will be giving out €3.4 Million to 31 indie or small game development studios to help fund their new projects.
Creative Europe is a programme created in the European Union — planned to last until at least 2020 — that helps fund small creative projects. These may range from areas such as cinema, literature, or art to theatre, video games and other cultural and creative sectors. It is influenced by already existing programmes in countries like Sweden, Norway, or Canada that help fund indie art students of any kind to promote the cultural growth of already wealthy countries.
This year, they announced that they will be helping fund videogames within Europe. Specifically, they will give out a total of €3,4 Million to 31 Indie game developers for their next projects. These studios are chosen subjectively by the board at Creative Europe. The programme heavily favours story-driven games as that is one of the major components of making games a cultural experience (according to creative europe) and so puzzle/strategy, RPG, and adventure are the most common genres in the list of funded projects.
Among the funded projects by Creative Europe, some of the most well known include The Witcher‘s creators CD Projekt Red which received €150,000 to help develop the expansion for The Witcher called The Witcher: Blood and Wine, Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs and Dear Esther‘s creators The Chinese Room which will be receiving new funding for a yet unconfirmed game called Total Dark, and Magicka and Crusader creators’ Paradox Interactive for a new game called Project Dallas. All of these big names will be receiving around €150,000 but whereas that is 50% of The Chinese Room‘s game, it is only 13% of the funded needed for Project Dallas, and only 7% of the funding for The Witcher expansion. A full list of the funded projects can be found here.
This initiative by the European Union and by Creative Europe will not only boost the amount of great videogames in the market but will also boost the European game industry as a whole, something that any gamer should welcome with open arms.
