Government backed Video Game Grants/Funds - Are they fraudulent?

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On the Brazilian videogames thread we discussed a recently released document claiming how Dead by Daylight is the prime example of why government funded games should be encouraged.
The efficacy of funding programs for video games can manifest years after the initial investment. Prominent examples of CMF-funded Canadian video game projects include Behaviour Interactive’s Dead by Daylight, which received $1 million in production funding in 201417 and has since becoming a widely successful live-service game with over 60 million players. 18 Dead by Daylight maintains its core gameplay concept and design, but since launch has evolved to include different game modes and downloadable content updates in collaboration with some of the world’s most popular horror franchises, including Saw, Alien, and Resident Evil. Ultimately, funding provided by the CMF during Dead by Daylight’s initial development, and the game’s subsequent success, enabled Behaviour Interactive to expand into a major independent game company with international subsidiary studios. Behaviour’s success story reached a turning point in 2019 when Netease made a multimillion dollar investment to acquire minority stake in the Canadian company, supporting development efforts and scaling.19 From a 550 employee company, Behaviour now counts more than 1,300 employees. For funding bodies, Behaviour Interactive’s story is the blueprint for their funding programs; to support the creation of projects that have a larger commercial potential once completed, strategically distributed and well-marketed.
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Regardless of you opinion on Dead by Daylight, the thing about Brazilian games is that most of government backed ones are either in development hell or have silent releases with little to no fanfare.

The most successful Brazilian franchises are Spark the Eletric Jester and Momodora, games that didn't use a single cent from the Brazilian taxpayers.

Meanwhile government backed games like Kriophobia and Arani are in fucking development hell, Kriophobia is making its 11th birthday since development started and Arani had no new stuff shown since its first trailer.

Government backed games that actually releases usually either get silent releases, or get flaunted for its "cultural circlejerk", like Arida, despite being a glorified tech demo.

Like some pointed out here, the government doesn't give a shit for what usually gets funded, things on Brazil got so bad on 2023 that there were cases of the same studio using different names to get their projects funded twice.

Frankly, I believe when government funded games started on the late 2000s, most people using it had good intentions, but now most people using said resources are extremely incompetent and just want to larp as videogame devs.

Nowadays the videogame industry is more about people giving shitty lectures of how games should be than actually developing videogames, government grants exists to validate said lectures.
 
ibeatmywife dijo:
Pretty sure CD projekt red got like 7 million from the polish government to develop cyberpunk. I remember reading an article where they got grant money.
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The studio behind The Witcher III has received 30m zloty ($7m) towards four proposals from its games development team, as well as a proposal by the GOG.com team to create a "generic support cross-platform multiplayer gaming software for popular consoles and operating systems".
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Hahahah!
 
Cats dijo:
It doesn't work like that.

First you have to be a vetted member of the inner circle, complete with your own file of sufficiently destructive blackmail evidence to ensure you are on equal grounds with the rest. Then the influence and black funds begin to flow out to the professional companies; certain payments are made, certain individuals are hired in middle-administration roles (possibly you and another operative) who begin to warp the smallest of details of a project up until someone eventually complains and you can begin to slowly weed out anyone who resists. They can then be replaced with your own people. Eventually the entire project has been compromised at the developmental level and will broadcast or display strategic portions of The Agenda. Over time, you and others from your intelligence organization may gain industry recognition, and some might even become well-respected and celebrated members of the community. This allows for exponential growth of The Agenda, even so far as to begin developing media that is nearly 100% propaganda hidden beneath a blanket of CGI animals and beloved Hollywood actors.
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"Hi, I'm Tom Hanks. The U.S. Government has no more credibility, so I'm letting them borrow some of mine." - Tom "not the captain anymore" Hanks
 
The Russian government have sponsored Смута (Time of troubles), give it a look, actually one of the biggest disasters in the recent video game history, a barely playable unfinished mess of a game that cost the Russians somewhere around 500 million rubles (4,739,469 in real money, still a lot)
 
Sparky Lurker dijo:
Frankly, I believe when government funded games started on the late 2000s, most people using it had good intentions, but now most people using said resources are extremely incompetent and just want to larp as videogame devs.
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It did. When the XBox got big, that was around the time the War on Terror started. I'm not blaming Bungie, but when Halo got huge, some glowies or feds got some big ideas. This also got video game journos caught up and encouraged to be edgelords and jackoffs (ie Adam Sessler) to simp out for government funding and money for glowing reviews.
 
Ideally this should be used to create a basis for the local industry that can't compete with western budgets.

What actually happens is that only the biggest ass kissers who share the people in charge's politics get obscene funding that they have no ability to manage, while people in talent are rejected for not making anything "meaningful".
 
wtfNeedSignUp dijo:
Ideally this should be used to create a basis for the local industry that can't compete with western budgets.

What actually happens is that only the biggest ass kissers who share the people in charge's politics get obscene funding that they have no ability to manage, while people in talent are rejected for not making anything "meaningful".
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Yeah that seems to be the big issue with getting government backed funding for video game studios.

Tends to poison the product they’re developing. But then again, a vast majority of the devs today are Reddit-tier homosexuals anyway.
 
Cedric_Eff dijo:
Yeah that seems to be the big issue with getting government backed funding for video game studios.

Tends to poison the product they’re developing. But then again, a vast majority of the devs today are Reddit-tier homosexuals anyway.
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It applies to virtually every type of government media funding, films tend to be just as bad if not worse.

However with video games you have cases of small handful of devs with tiny budgets making extremely well selling games, so there is no point giving them a ton of money when the won't be able to compete against AAA games anyways.
 
One of the funniest things along this line I remember was the Kingdoms of Amalur debacle. Basically the famous Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling retired from baseball and started a video game studio because he really liked vidya and RPGs. Then he got a loan from the state of Rhode Island for like $100 million+ on the condition he move all his employees there. Apparently the government genuinely believed that other vidya companies would follow 38 Studios and set up shop in Rhode Island. Anyway, they made Kingdoms of Amalur and had a bunch of work done on an MMO.

Turns out Kingdoms of Amalur needed to sell like 3-4 times as much as it did just for the studio to break even, which was an insanely unrealistic goal. The state of Rhode Island was pissed and refused to give them any more money. 38 Studios laid off all their employees and went under, which meant a bunch of people they uprooted to Rhode Island were now stuck there without a job. Apparently there was a criminal investigation over the loan too but nobody ever got charged.

The saddest thing about it is that Curt Schilling seems like a guy with some common sense to him. And I get that nobody wants to be the guy who tells the pitcher who gave the Red Sox the first World Series win in over 80 years that his game has no market and denies him the loan. But it's insane that governments are still handing out these grants and loans but to random leftist lunatics who have no business sense and produce a bunch of awful shit. It's not surprising to me that some of it like Dustborn is literally globalist propaganda on the same lines of what the USSR or Nazi Germany did.
 
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