BERLIN, April 24 (Xinhua) -- A representative body of the German computer games industry presented a new model under which the federal government would offer financial support to domestic game developers on Tuesday.
"The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU) and German Social Democrats (SPD) have agreed on a new fund to promote the development of games in their grand-coalition agreement," Felix Falk, president of the German Games Industry Association (Game), told press at the ongoing "Gamesweek" fair in Berlin.
Falk suggested that the fund be equipped with annual starting capital of 50 million euros (61 million U.S. dollars) in order to eliminate competitive disadvantages suffered by developers based in Germany.
The Game president emphasized that a leverage effect resulting from the subsidies meant that "German tax authorities would also stand to benefit" from the new model. Falk pointed to empirical evidence from a similar model in France, where every euro granted in financial assistance to firms generated 1.8 euros in tax and social insurance income, as well as 8 euros in new investment.
Falk estimated that 90 million euros in additional taxes and 400 million euros in additional investment could be generated in his home country by the proposed scheme. "We want to make Games made in Germany a real success story", the industry representative said.
Game wants the funds to be made available to products and prototypes of game development studios of varying sizes, maintaining high levels of simplicity, transparency and predictability for companies. "We do not want to encourage a culture of subsidies, but instead want to improve the competitiveness of German developers," Falk clarified.
Several other countries like France, Britain and Canada already offer targeted financial assistance to entrepreneurs in their respective games industries, making it harder to German developing studios to compete internationally.
