Internet Development Institute about grants for game development: "The subject of projects can be very diverse"

The day before yesterday we wrote that in Russia they are going to issue grants for the development of patriotic video games. The Internet Development Institute (IRI) will distribute them. Is this so and how much is such a grant news at all?

Art for the game “Prince: Legends of the Forest Country” (1999)
As Nikolay Tertychny from the press service of the IRI told us, the institute really conducts competitive selections of content projects.

But there are no programs with the wording “patriotic video games” there. But there is:

• “Competition for the creation of socially significant content for young people”;
• “Competition for the creation of national content“.

Within the framework of each of these competitions, there is an opportunity to apply for a grant for the development of a video game / software product (as well as for the creation of a cartoon, podcast or even a feature film).

That’s just, as it turned out, there is no big news in this. The same “Competition for the creation of socially significant content” within the framework of the national project “Culture” has been held since 2020.

But there is one important nuance. Until the end of 2021, content creation was limited to just one year.

“Responsibly, for the creators of the games, this competition was not of interest because of the short production time,” notes Tertychny.

Now the situation has changed. Iran has received the opportunity to support long-term projects up to and including 2024. In connection with this change, the institute hopes that they will receive more game projects for consideration.

To our question about the size of the total fund for gaming products, we were answered as follows: “There is no fund as such, since we do not know how many projects will be submitted to the competition in the direction of ‘Software products’.”

As for the expert jury, the IRI is not ready to disclose it, because it fears a conflict of interests. A year ago, the jury consisted of only one expert profile for the gaming industry — the head of the production department Mail.ru Group (today — VK) Vladimir Bugaev.

Tertychny also commented on the theme of the games under consideration. He emphasized that it can be very diverse, and not only military or historical, as previously reported by Znak.

The start of the competitive selections is planned in the near future — until February 10.