“Figure it out yourselves” Russian authorities refused to financially support the game development industry

Some believed that in Russia, the authorities would financially support video game development. Things are not as simple as one might expect

Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media Maksim Parshin stated that the government does not plan to financially support the video game development industry.

Media quote Maksim as saying: “It makes sense to cover some things, gray areas (of the gaming industry ‘landscape’) through state investment, but these are exceptions and very specific projects related, for example, to simulators. Everything else is a market, and investments here should not come from the state. We proceed from the fact that there is money in the market, there are projects, there are developers. That is, everything is in place for projects to develop without public investment.”

Currently, the Ministry of Digital Development considers the gaming industry as part of the IT sector: “The logic of our possible support is built within the general logic of import substitution.”

He recalled that previously, the state also did not directly support the gaming industry, adhering to the principle of “if it works, don't mess with it.” Still, certain support measures were in place: “...the budget covered the project rate compensation on a bank loan in the amount of 400 million rubles granted to one of the game developers for a specific project, the launch of which is scheduled for next year.”

Head of the Internet Development Institute (IRI) Alexey Goreslavsky also noted that “over the past year, 960 million rubles were invested into the industry through the IRI.”

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