France Offers Grants For Game Makers

vasqzr writes "According to a BBC News article, if you come up with a good idea for a video game in France, you could get a helping hand from the state." The article elaborates: "The French Government is offering four million euros [$4.5 million] to help aspiring game developers turn their ideas into reality." But not everybody can just purloin the money: "The government will pay for up to 40% of the cost... but there are strings attached... to get a slice of the cash, firms have to be French and the work developing an idea must be done in France itself" and apparently, the content of the game is important too, as "...the French Government... will not hand out grants for violent or pornographic games."

In violation of the law

[Basje]

I don't know who came up with this story, but it totally unlikely that the french government would go ahead with this.

This is against EU laws, which prohibits governments supporting local companies, to promote competition across the EU (Article 87 of the Treaty Establishing The European Community).

If the french would do this, they would face stiff penalties.

Re:Good Idea

[Winterblink]

The Canadian government CAN give cash injections for companies that are just starting out. In my local area they're carrying along quite well with a tech business incubator concept, where the region provides an area for tech companies to set up shop and helps them along with ideas for marketing and getting those government subsidies. So far it seems to be successful, there's at least one web designer company that "hatched" from that incubator and now has full fledged offices in a high-rise downtown. The idea of the incubator isn't new, but it seems to be really catching on around here thanks to an overall crummy economy.

Anyway, the short of it is that there IS money out there from the Canadian government. You just have to know how to get it, and the money isn't JUST for tech companies-- it's for any small business starting up.