Games Funding Institutions

Game development in Germany is funded on multiple levels. Alongside the federal funding, each German state can run its own funding institution and some institutions pool resources across several states at once. Every institution sets its own criteria: who can apply, how much is available, which development stages are supported, and how often funding rounds take place. This makes the landscape quite complex. Click on any institution to explore its individual history and funding patterns.

Summary per Institution

The table below gives an overview of all institutions recorded in this database, sorted by total funding amount. "# Fundings" counts individual funding records, while "# Games" counts the distinct projects that received support. The average per game can give a rough sense of typical grant sizes, but keep in mind that one institution may fund many small concept grants while another funds fewer but larger production budgets.

Total Funding per Institution

How has funding activity developed over time, and which institutions have been most active in which years? Use the toggle to switch between total amount and number of individual grants — a year with many small grants can look very different from a year with few large fundings.

Funding over Time (Scatterplot)

Each dot represents one funding record. The higher a dot sits, the larger the amount — dots near the bottom are small grants, dots near the top are large production fundings. Color indicates the institution.

Funding by Type

Not all funding is the same. A concept grant helps a studio test an early idea, a production grant funds most of the development of a game, a distribution grant supports bringing a finished game to market. Because every institution uses its own terminology, all funding types have been standardized into common categories (if you deem this standardization incorrect, please contact me, I'm not an expert).

Expand the section below to see how the original labels map to the standardized ones used in the charts.