Why game funding is not suitable for traffic light excitement

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"Hundreds of thousands for a Snake clone, ChatGPT can do that for a fraction" – These kinds of statements have been made in social media in recent days and the furor is being portrayed as a failure on the part of the traffic light government and the responsible Minister of Economic Affairs, Habeck. But this is simply wrong – if you take a closer look, you will a more complex situation .

Federal funding for computer games has been criticized from many sides for years. Just a few days ago, the industry association game e.V. complained at Gamescom about the new guidelines for the funding program planned for next year. Among other things, these envisage a division into federal and state responsibilities, which would deprive studios of the opportunity to receive funding from both at the same time. The Federal Audit Office had recently called for this division, which also criticized the fact that studios would not have to pay back the subsidies granted if the games were commercially successful.

But once again, this kind of factual criticism, which may even be constructive and lead to changes, is not suitable as a striking agitation. Instead, a seemingly simple browser game is used to denounce the supposed failure of the traffic light government, which is now not only supporting cycle paths in Peru, but also browser games in HTML5 with large sums of money. The list of funded games does indeed include all kinds of casual games, but also A-list titles such as "Anno 117", for whose development the Ubisoft subsidiary Blue Byte will receive 5.6 million euros from the federal government over a period of two years. This also includes a game for the Amiga, which has now mutated into a collector's item. However, the responsible Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) is not aiming for the most creative projects and innovative game mechanics, but simply wants to preserve jobs in Germany and prevent the games industry from moving abroad. Flippant comments such as "this could have been developed in India for five euros" show that its authors have not understood precisely this objective.

Games funding is a CSU invention

And the examples cited are just as unsuitable for getting worked up about the traffic lights' alleged waste of money. Although many of the projects were approved in the current legislative period and thus under the leadership of the BMWK with Minister Habeck, they are based on a funding guideline from 2020. And at that time, games funding was still in the hands of the Ministry of Transport under CSU Minister Andreas Scheuer, who, together with the then Minister of State for Digitization, Dorothee Bär (also CSU), promoted it with a memorable sword-wielding appearance at the German Computer Game Award, among other things.

Does a cultural test offer enough height?

Let's return to the striking example of "Modern Snake". In the federal funding guidelines, there is a so-called "cultural test" with three sections (context and content, platform and innovation) – only an idea that fulfills two criteria from the first two sections and one criterion from the last section is eligible for funding. However, these criteria are quite vague and seem incomplete – so from a very formalistic point of view, a Snake clone can easily fulfill them:

• Snake has been part of the German gaming tradition at least since Nokia phones, so the first criterion is met,
• The game is significantly developed in Germany, which is an important criterion for funding by the BMWK, and
• by moving away from the right-angled game grid, there is even an innovation for category 3

If you would like to read through the funding guidelines, you can find them as a PDF on the BMWK website.

This leaves the question of the costs: as the games funding scheme pays out a maximum of 50 percent of the funding amount, the actual estimated development costs for a game like "Modern Snake" are apparently at least twice as high, i.e. almost 400,000 euros. This seems very high – however, the funds are not paid out in blank, but require proof of use. It is the responsibility of the implementing ministry and the Federal Audit Office to examine these.

Appropriate criticism directed at the wrong addressees

Whether it should be so easy for game ideas to become eligible for federal funding should rightly be discussed and the funding then adjusted. However, this is exactly what is already happening under the traffic light government. So to accuse it of inactivity or wasting money, depending on your taste, is clearly too short-sighted, because the current guidelines are a remnant of the previous government.

(Transparency note: heise online operates a games portal together with the company KR3M, author of "Modern Snake". However, this did not influence the opinion of the author, who has not played Snake for 25 years).

(cku)