D&D 5E The German Government Wants Similar to BG3 Developed In Germany

[Paul Farquhar]

IMO the interesting take away is simply that the German government wants to foster the digital gaming industry and they are actually putting money & legislation into the effort.

Government's are rarely effective developing or completely funding technology development, but they can be really good at focusing development into areas that they see most beneficial to their citizens by doing things like seed funding, legislation, tax breaks, and stating the technologies they would like to see locals invest in. Everything the article indicates Germany is doing.

Now, the real question is; is this initiative near the top or the bottom of Secretary Kellner's list of initiatives?

Roll for it.

 

[LordEntrails]

Roll for it.

18 on 3d6, I swear!

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Aside from that being ridiculously expensive and against EU regs, the objective of the German government is the long term growth of an industry in which it feels the country is lagging behind, not providing us with more D&D games as quickly as possible.

What regulation would that violate?

 

[schneeland]

With who? There are no studios in Germany who even in a position where they could starting hiring to work on a D&D CRPG and have any realistic expectation of succeeding.

I think that's the main problem: there's certainly enough talented developers and artists over here, but there are simply no German game studios in the AAA league. And judging from past experiences, the funding provided by the government is not even remotely in the area of a typical modern AAA video game.
So yes, it's nice that we have left the "video games turn you into a murderer" talk of the 90s, but the German video games industry is not in a great shape for quite a while now and I don't see any indication that this will change in the foreseeable future.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I think that's the main problem: there's certainly enough talented developers and artists over here, but there are simply no German game studios in the AAA league. And judging from past experiences, the funding provided by the government is not even remotely in the area of a typical modern AAA video game.
So yes, it's nice that we have left the "video games turn you into a murderer" talk of the 90s, but the German video games industry is not in a great shape for quite a while now and I don't see any indication that this will change in the foreseeable future.

That why a partnership with a major corporation or country would be the way to go, training wheels that are more affordible.

 

[schneeland]

That why a partnership with a major corporation or country would be the way to go, training wheels that are more affordible.

AAA publishers don't really need to partner with a German dev studio - if they are interested, they can buy it. And they probably are not going to both with the constraints and necessary reporting to the German government for "just" 1 or 2 Million Euros.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

What regulation would that violate?

The EU has regulations about fair competition (between European countries) and part of that is that the state can only do so much if it's promoting some industry within a specific country.

Something like creating a state-funded/run games company would be very likely to fall afoul of those rules.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I thought they did partially fund the Titan Quest 2 development through the same program

Yeah though it's completely unclear how much, like, was EUR100k? Or something more significant for an AA game like that, like EUR4m?

AAA publishers don't really need to partner with a German dev studio - if they are interested, they can buy it. And they probably are not going to both with the constraints and necessary reporting to the German government for "just" 1 or 2 Million Euros.

Exactly. The annoyance just wouldn't be worth it unless it was serious money.

 

[Zardnaar]

BG3 has humor though? (Ducks).

 

[mamba]

Yeah though it's completely unclear how much, like, was EUR100k? Or something more significant for an AA game like that, like EUR4m?

no idea, but if they think either figure will result in BG4 being developed in Germany, they have a lot to learn