A €2 million ($2.42 million) grant slated to fund Spanish indie developers is now dead in the water.
According to a report from El Español (opens in new tab) (translated by Polygon (opens in new tab)), Àlvaro Nadal, Spain's minister of energy, tourism, and digital agenda, cancelled the grant for unspecified reasons. The decision comes just one week before a presentation by DEV (opens in new tab), a Spanish videogame association, on the state of the industry.
Funded by the European Union, the grant would have given €50,000 to €150,000 to 20 different developers, with a particular focus on small studios of five or fewer members working on their first game.
While Spain isn't the world's biggest games market, as NewZoo (opens in new tab)reports, it is a major player as the fourth largest market in the EU and the ninth largest in the world. You're probably familiar with some of the country's studios, too. Tequila Works released Rime (opens in new tab)and The Sexy Brutale (opens in new tab)last year alone, and newcomer Fourattic is now working on cartoonish adventure game Crossing Souls (opens in new tab)following its successful Kickstarter. BeautiFun Games released Nihilumbra (opens in new tab)in 2013, and has a top-down puzzle game in the pipes for 2018.
