Grants for Video Games
The discussion
Noor: The arts council is debating whether video games should get the same grants as film and theatre. I think they obviously should, because games are now the biggest entertainment medium and most of the money goes to a handful of huge studios.
Sebastian: The arts budget is already tiny, and it's there to support work the market won't fund. Games are a profitable industry; giving them grants means taking money from a struggling regional theatre to subsidise something that can pay for itself.
Tariq: The industry is profitable, but individual developers aren't. My cousin spent three years on a game about her grandmother's village and couldn't get a publisher because it had no shooting in it. That's exactly the kind of work grants exist for.
Sebastian: That example does move me a bit. I could support a separate, small fund for independent games with cultural content, as long as it isn't carved out of the existing theatre and music budgets.
Noor: Why separate, though? If a game and a play are both telling a local story, they should compete for the same money on the same terms.
Tariq: I'd actually side with Sebastian on keeping it separate, at least at first. Theatre panels don't know how to judge a game, and a dedicated fund with its own reviewers would make better decisions.