German government wants games like Baldur's Gate 3 to 'also go on to be developed in Germany'

Last year, we were slightly surprised to learn that not only does the German government sponsor a videogame award ceremony, it gives serious cash prizes to most of the winners. At the 2023 German Computer Game Awards—aka the Deutscher Computerspielpreis (DCP)—retro RPG Chained Echoes won Best German Game and a €100,000 endowment, and at this year's ceremony on April 18, the same honor and cash prize went to Everspace 2 and Hamburg-based developer Rockfish Games.

One award that doesn't come with a cash prize is Best International Game, which—surprise surprise—went to Baldur's Gate 3 and Larian this year. Itwould be a little weird if the German government wrote Swen Vincke and the Belgian studio a check just to say, hey, loved the RPG, so another trophy for the trophy pile will have to do.

The point of the cash prizes is of course to support and encourage German game development, and Michael Kellner, Parliamentary State Secretary at Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, says he wants to ensure that German studios produce games like Baldur's Gate 3 in the future. (And also do some climate action, I assume.)

The «wide range and creativity of games developed in Germany» demonstrated at this year's German Computer Game Awards «must be expanded further, and the potential of the industry must be utilized even more,» said Kellner. «As the federal government, we want to make an important contribution to this through our new games funding. The funding is to help ensure that games such as this year's best international game also go on to be developed in Germany.»

The funding Kellner refers to is a grant program launched by the German government in 2020 «to promote the development of computer and video games in Germany in order to achieve international competitiveness.» The German Games Industry Association noted that Canada, the UK, and France have established more substantial game development industries than Germany with the help of similar