Spanish Indie Devs Getting a 6.5 Million Euro Grant

A little while back, we reported on some political bollocks happening in Spain, where a 2 million euro grant that was supposed to bolster the country’s indie gaming scene was being canceled by Spain's minister of energy, tourism and digital agenda Àlvaro Nadal, for seemingly no reason at all. Companies despaired and figures from around the industry tried to intervene, but as it turns out, that wasn’t necessary at all: as the reason the 2 million euro grant was canceled was that they were paving the way for an even larger, 6.5 million euro grant instead.

…That’s a bit unexpected, right?

Apparently, the original grant was scrapped after DEV, a Spanish video game organization, had some managerial turnover. But it was replaced by an even bigger, more ambitious, and far more generous grant that will be handed out to even more small indie developers around the country, assuming they qualify for it.

The original 20 companies who were primed to get the first 2 million euros are still lined up to get extra funds, but now, any Spanish game studio who’ve been open for longer than six months and has generated less than 2 million euros annually can apply for a grant, which can be good for up to 150,000 euros in funding.

And as it turns out, that extra money is needed. Despite a 21% increase in industry growth last year, 90 of the 450 game companies in Spain have yet to generate revenue. 30 even went out of business. Worse still, half of all of Spain’s gaming revenue goes to a small fraction of foreign companies, meaning investors are unwilling to take risks on smaller, younger, more local developers.

Still, this grant should help enormously, and hopefully, give developers some hope when planning for the future.

What a happy way to end this story!