The Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore’s federal government recently announced a financial incentive boost on internal film and video game development, hoping to “[place] an emphasis on projects that are internationally-marketable and scale across media platforms.” Games in particular received 20 million Singapore dollars, roughly equivalent to $14.6 million in investment. The earmarked funds have a three-year implementation plan under the “GAME+ Programme, which aims to address the needs of the entire games value chain by providing support for concept development all the way to go-to-market strategies,” which are comprised of three components: INSPIRE+, INNOVATE+ and INVIGORATE+.
INSPIRE+ will begin by “co-investing up to 30 percent in large-scale, bigger-budget game content projects such as the development of multi-million massively multiplayer online games.” This will move on to INNOVATE+ “a joint call with the Central Provident Fund Board for financial management games on social networking sites and mobile phones.” Finally rounding out with INVIGORATE+, a “series of quarterly calls today targeted at start-ups and individuals for proposals for games on emerging platforms such as social networking sites, mobile phones, handheld devices and online game services.”
yay money going into gaming! More countries need to invest like this.