Delivered at Casual Connect Europe 2016 European Union through the Creative Europe programme supports the cultural and creative sectors, including video games and aims to improve the competitiveness of the European video games industry by increasing its capacity to develop works with a high circulation potential, both in the EU and beyond. Come and learn about the opportunities offered by this programme and the challenges ahead.

1. Video Games in the
Creative Europe
Maciej Szymanowicz
European Commission
MEDIA Support Programmes

2. INTRO
• Creative Europe
• MEDIA- what's in for VG professionals?
• Development of video games
• Access to finance: Cultural and Creative Sectors Guarantee
Facility
• Data collection

3. Creative Europe Programme objectives
General
objectives
• Promote cultural and linguistic diversity and cultural heritage
• Strengthen the competitiveness of the European cultural and creative sectors (CCS),
in particular the audiovisual sector
Support CCS
capacity to
operate
transnationally
and
internationally
Promote
transnational
circulation and
reach out to new
audiences
Strengthen
the financial
capacity of
CCS
Foster policy
development,
innovation,
new business
models
Specific objectives
CULTURE / MEDIA
Sub-programmes
Cross-sectoral Strand
and Guarantee Facility (including
Capacity Building )

5. MEDIA- what's in: TRAINING
+/- 80 initiatives for the training of more than 1500
professionals per year, budget ca: €7.5 M
Training subjects:
Audience development, marketing, distribution and exploitation
Financial and commercial management
Project development and production
Challenges of the Digital Shift

6. MEDIA- what's in: MARKET ACCESS
Support for major professional’s markets, and pan European
professional databases
Business to Business events and online tools providing
platforms for professionals
Events facilitating the financing, co-production and the sales of
European works across all genres
Annual support for 50-60 Market Access actions.
Budget ca: €8 M.

7. MEDIA:Development of video games
Development (+/- 160 single, 80 slate, 20 game projects)
Single Projects and Slate Funding (3 to 5 projects) to increase the
capacity of producers to develop projects with a potential for European
circulation
€17.5 M for animation, creative documentary and fiction intended for
cinema, TV, web platforms
€2.6 M for a specific call for Video Games
TV Programming (+/- 50 TV projects)
€11.8 M to encourage the production and distribution of high quality
TV works for the European and international markets

8. MEDIA: Development of video games
• video game production companies (NOT publishing or
distribution)
• registered in an eligible country
• 12 months of existence
• that can demonstrate a recent success (game commercially
distributed between 01/01/2013 & date of application)
• owning the majority of rights related to the submitted project

9. MEDIA:Development of video games
Eligible activities:
• narrative storytelling video games (in-game storytelling)
• intended for commercial exploitation
• only the activities relating to the development phase
• production phase must not be scheduled to start before 8 months
after the date of submission
• ineligible type of projects: puzzle games, memory games, sports
games, racing games, running games, rhythm/singing/dancing
games, social games, quiz games, party games, versus-fighting
games, word and spelling games, number games, mind games

10. Development of video games
• available budget for 2016 = 2,6 M €
• financial contribution between EUR 10.000 and EUR 150.000
• maximum 50% of the total eligible costs
• DL for applications: 03 March 2016, 12.00 CET
• more info (guidelines, FAQs, how to):
http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/creative-europe/funding/development-
video-games-2016_en
or
EACEA-MEDIA-DEVELOPMENT@ec.europa.eu

11. Cultural and Creative Sectors Guarantee
Facility
o Historical weaknesses for CCS financing include fragmentation, chronic underinvestment and undercapitalization.
o Common CCS specificities which limit financing of SMEs include:
o Intangible nature of their assets (mainly Intellectual Property Rights), difficult to evaluate
o Prototype nature of their output
o Niche market of a small size, creating a lack of critical mass.
o Specific cash flow schemes and life-cycle, specific vehicles per project, etc
o Personal collateral is typically requested when providing finance.
o Shortage of reliable data which limits the possibilities of SMEs in the sector to get funding.
o Consequently, evaluating credit risk in the CCS requires specific and different approaches and cannot be done in a very
standardized way.
o European financial intermediaries –with a few exceptions - do not currently have the in-house necessary expertise for evaluating
credit risk in the CCS (e.g. a common practice- to request private collateral from the entrepreneur).

12. Cultural and Creative Sectors Guarantee
Facility

13. Cultural and Creative Sectors Guarantee
Facility

14. Mapping EU video game industry
• no European-scale mapping is available on the sector's stakeholders and economic
performances
• the current statistical classification as well as the industry evolutions have made the
sector more and more difficult to chart through “classical” market research and statistical
analysis.
• Goal (results in 2017)
a. identify the main developers, publishers and other companies involved in the value chain
of videogames in Europe (e.g. tools developers, providers of QA and localisation services);
b. year of establishment, country, and, in the case, where financials are available, number of
employees;
c. assess the platforms they develop for;
d. identify the main clusters of videogames publishing in Europe (links to education etc.);
e. economic contribution of the European videogames industry in terms of revenues and
employment.

15. Thank you
“As a company that believes that the story is the key element to a
great game, it’s wonderful to know that Creative Europe is
providing funding specifically for great stories and great ideas in
games and other media. In a world where match-3s, endless-
runners and open-world shmups are saturating the market, it’s so
great to know that there’s an organisation out there that still
believes in the importance of a good story.”
An Irish beneficiary of MEDIA VG development grant.