Spain is among the ten biggest markets of video games in the world according to Newzoo's Global Games Market Report, but when it comes to game development, things aren't as peachy and we'd challenge you to name ten recent titles coming out of the country. As a means to try and facilitate domestic game development, the Spanish government announced a new line of public funding last year, with applications said to open in December.
But it didn't happen, and the new year started with a report of online newspaper El Español assuming that the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Digital Agenda cut the funding coming from the European Union. The program was outlined as supplying applicants with a total of two million euro, split between roughly 20 different first-time projects.
On Thursday, after news spreading to local and international outlets, Spanish minister of Digital Agenda denied that the project had been cancelled on Twitter, linking to a press release. Applications for this new program are now set to launch in Q1 2017, while terms and conditions are being redesigned for greater efficiency, states the press release.
Iván Fernández Lobo, director of Gamelab, confirmed to Gamereactor over the phone that developers were aware of the delay and further development of the public funding program. Representatives of the Spanish Government and the local industry, (with studios being represented by DEV association) will meet next Monday following the schedule set last year. The meeting was planned ahead of time and isn't in response to the media attention the delayed program has garnered.