Creative Europe’s latest ‘call for proposals’ is just as daft and unfair as previous ones. For some reason the EU’s grant granters still feel the only games deserving of funding are ‘narrative’ games. Thinking of making an RTS, TBS, or sim that doesn’t spin a yarn “throughout the whole game”? No €200K for you, chum.
When a key part of your mission is “increasing the competitiveness and the economic potential of the cultural and creative sectors” explicitly excluding most of the studios working in those sectors, seems to me, somewhat counter-productive.
If previous calls had produced a wealth of narrative games that “safeguard, develop and promote European cultural and linguistic diversity and heritage” (another aspect of CE’s remit) I’d be more than willing to give the EU’s fun financiers the benefit of the doubt. However, having surveyed previously funded projects (a fair number of which never made it to release) and discovered mostly games without strong geographical or cultural roots, I reckon root-and-branch reform of Creative Europe’s game grant programme is urgently needed.
Would the programme be so flawed if the European games press had been keeping a quizzical eye on it for the past decade? We’ll never know. Perhaps unaware of the bewildering logic at the heart of the scheme, possibly worried about being seen as anti-EU, sites like Gamesindustry.biz, Eurogamer, and Clock Draper Spudgun, take almost no interest in the activities of CE.
How much of the seven million Euros dished out as a result of CREA-MEDIA-2025-DEVVGIM will end up in bestselling games with distinctly European characters, how much in generic mediocrities or projects that disappear without trace before reaching the market? Only time, and THC, will tell. I intend to follow the fortunes of funded projects, and share news of them from time to time.
Looking forward to the reports, Tim. You’re like a terrier on a postman’s leg with this! Which is a good thing – most journos these days let things slide a little too easily, I reckon.
There was one wryly amusing phrase that leapt out at me from the call for proposals: “original content and/or quality gameplay” “Or”? “OR”??!?
Witcher 4 might qualify? That’d be a worthy grant, if it has the quality of writing and storytelling of Witcher 3.
Would a career mode on a sim qualify? “Driver training, day 17. Took the double-decker onto the skid pan today. Managed to keep it upright but the instructor said I’d have seriously injured, maybe even killed anybody on the top deck.”
Maybe there’s scope for a Bosnian War RTS. Small unit tactics, playing as a Serb you take a village, voiceover as you order the men and boys killed, let your own troops enjoy themselves. That’d be a harsh game to play, would need good voice acting.