BERLIN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The opening of the Gamescon in Cologne, Europe's largest video games trade fair, has been accompanied by renewed calls from German developers for more government support on Tuesday.
Speaking to press, Felix Falk, president of the German Games Industry Association (Game), complained that while Germany was the fifth largest video game market in the world as measured by sales, only a meagre 5.4 percent of those products were developed in the country. It was hence overdue that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU) and German Social Democrats (SPD) put a promise in their coalition agreement to promote the domestic development of games into action.
Falk lamented what he described as an unfavorable market environment for games developers which undermined digital innovation more generally in Germany. He consequently reiterated an earlier proposal by his organization to create a government fund with an annual starting capital of 50 million euros (57.6 million U.S. dollar) in order to eliminate competitive disadvantages suffered by the gaming industry.
Joerg Mueller-Lietzkow, professor for media studies at the University of Paderborn, highlighted on Tuesday that the international weakness of the German gaming industry was not an isolated phenomenon. "The purpose of promoting (the industry) is not primarily to make companies developing games more profitable but to support native-grown innovations in areas such as artificial intelligence in Germany", he said.
Similarly, Falk has emphasized that a leverage effect resulting from the subsidies meant that "German tax authorities would also stand to benefit" from the new model. The Game president pointed to empirical evidence from a similar model in France, where every euro granted in financial assistance to companies generated 1.8 euros in tax- and social insurance income, as well as eight euros in new investment.
Falk estimated that 90 million euros in additional taxes and 400 million euros in additional investment could be generated in his home country by the proposed scheme. "We want to make Games made in Germany a real success story", he said.
Towards that end, Game hopes that taxpayer funds will soon be made available to products and prototypes of game development studios of varying sizes, maintaining high levels of simplicity, transparency and predictability for companies. "We do not want to encourage a culture of subsidies, but instead want to improve the competitiveness of German developers", Falk clarified.
So far, the ministry of transport which is also responsible for digitalization has only offered vague assurances that funds could be made available to companies in the course of 2019. The appearance that government priorities currently lie elsewhere was underscored by the representation of the federal government at Gamescon. Whereas chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) opened the trade fair in still person last year, a ministerial secretary of state was sent to Cologne in her stead on Tuesday.
