Significantly lower cost of living, or better sources of early-stage funding. Some countries have started including games in their arts or film funding, which c

Significantly lower cost of living, or better sources of early-stage funding. Some countries have started including games in their arts or film funding, which can be a viable source of initial funds (especially in countries where the arts funding is fairly large, relative to population). A lot of our students (I teach in a game program in Denmark) pay for the first 3-12 months of their indie studios that way. Those are typically $15k initial grants, and a possibility of around $100k-$200k follow-on funding towards production, if they're convinced it's worth funding at more than the seed level. Obviously that's not going to pay for an AAA game, but it gives indie developers some runway. The early funding for Playdead's Limbo [1] was through that route, for example, and then they sought commercial investors later. Here are this year's recipients: http://www.dfi.dk/Branche_og_stoette/Spilordningen/stoettede-spil-foraar-2014.aspx http://www.dfi.dk/Branche_og_stoette/Spilordningen/stoettede... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_(video_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_(video_game)