Government funding and RPGs

[matthijs]

This thread is for exchanging information and experiences wrt getting funding for RPG design and publication. (It might be a bit euro-centric, since we're all a bunch of socialists over here, but I hope it's still a relevant Forge topic).

In another thread, Markus Montola wrote about RPG funding in Finland:

To my knowledge, no-one has published a game book with governmental money yet, but [Eero] is at least applying. Also, some people have been at least considering applying for artist grants.

In Norway, there's an institution called Kulturrådet, whose primary responsibility is to decide how to spend money from Kulturfondet, which was established to encourage publication of Norwegian literature (at a time when most books published in Norway were translations of foreign books).

Kulturrådet have partially financed both professional Norwegian RPG publications - Fabula and Draug. Without this funding, at least Draug would never have been published. The '05 Knutepunkt book "Dissecting Larp" also received funding from Kulturrådet.

Currently, the Norwegian association of game designers (Spillskaperlaget) is in dialogue with Kulturrådet about the possibility of yearly funding for RPG design/publication. Signals have been moderately positive.

I've applied for an artist grant as an RPG designer; to my knowledge, this is the first time this has happened in Norway. I can't wait to get their reply - which won't be forthcoming for another 6 months.

[Eero Tuovinen]

I don't know how much non-specific information there is that we can exhange here. It seems to me that most of the stuff is firmly country-specific. For instance, what can I say about my experiences? I could name a list of Finnish grant donors that could subsidize rpgs, but that's not very interesting for anybody from out of country. Perhaps we should compare tips for application writing?

Regardless, this is clearly the decade of roleplaying as far as art and mainstream is concerned. The institutes and states are ready and willing to give money to roleplaying in equal measure to other arts, at least in Finland. I got notice just today that the Kordelin Institute in Finland has accepted my application for another translation grant (if you'll remember, we got an itty-bitty grant for Dust Devils last spring). One time might be a coincidence, but twice seems to indicate that this is a feasible method of financing a commercially marginal project.

I'm planning to utilize the public grant system fully in my future rpg projects, whatever they may be. In addition to translations it's quite conseivable to get grants for original work, travel and certain kinds of publication. Like Matthijs, I will probably try to get an actual artist grant at some point, too. That requires previous displays of competence, though, so it's in the future at this point.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Actually, comparative, specific information different countries or states would be extremely valuable.

For instance, who can tell us about Sverok, in Sweden?

Best,
Ron

[matthijs]

Well, I can say a bit about Hyperion, the Norwegian counterpart of Sverok. Hyperion is an umbrella organization (meaning that its members are actually other clubs) dedicated to "fantastical leisure activities" - RPGs, computer games, anime, LARP (although the anarchistic LARPers don't like Hyperion much), etc.. At the moment, Hyperion has more than 12,000 members, IIRC, most of which have membership through a large LAN/computer festival called "The Gathering", which has some 5,000 members.

Hyperion is a very bureaucratic and democratically correct organization, which is why they've been so successful at getting funding and members. Many clubs are Hyperion members simply because it's a good way to get money, others because they want to be part of something bigger that may have political clout. Hyperion is, among others, active in RPG matters; they support Spillskaperlaget in our quest for government funding for RPG designers, and they have a separate project called "Rollespill i skolen" that wants to promote gaming in schools.

I'm wondering what will happen to Norwegian RPGs in the future. So far, Norwegian language RPGs haven't been huge commercial successes, but with funding, they don't have to be. If RPGs are accepted as an art form - which may take some years, perhaps decades - that will certainly influence the style of game our designers will end up making. Kulturrådet have already made comments to the effect that games with a strong literal basis - as in, lots of text and few mechanics - will have a much greater chance of funding, at least from that institution. So a D20 product, for instance, would probably have to be an amateur publication, while something like Amber might receive funding.

[Eirik Fatland]

About SVEROK
Absent any active Swedes on this forum, I could add some words about SVEROK:
(this comes from some research I did when writing this article (PDF))

SVEROK is, with some 90.000 members, Swedens largest youth organization. It receives abouth USD 2 million in government funding each year. The organisation has chapters in every Swedish province, but mostly is an "umbrella" with smaller organisations as members (the members of member organisations are counted as SVEROK members). SVEROKs defined interest is "games", which includes LARP, RPGs, boardgames, Arcade & LAN games, chess, backgammon etc. etc. The greater part of the government funding is redistributed to the organisations, both in the form of annual per-member support and in the form of project financing.

My impression is that SVEROK has contributed a lot to building a national infrastructure for gaming subculture, but not so much to the development of games themselves. SVEROK funds, often combined with economic support at the local/municipal level, help clubs maintain club-rooms, publish fanzines, hold conventions, train members of their boards etc. etc. For projects (such as a larp or the publication of a book) SVEROK support tends to be helpfull but not essential. A typical budget sees SVEROK paying maybe USD 1000 out of a USD 8000 budget. It's not insignificant, but something that could be done for $8000 could usually be done (somewhat less comfortably) for $7000 as well.

There are two limits to SVEROK funding - one is that it is targeted for "youth", and the other is that SVEROK tends to support only non-commercial activities. I don't know if there are any specific statutes against it, but I have a hard time imagining SVEROK supporting the publication of a potentially profitable RPG or a larp club with principally adult players. For example, I don't think "Kult" has received any SVEROK funding - although the clubs of people who play "Kult" do.

SVEROK has a fairly strong internal democracy, with competitive elections for all significant posts. This has led to SVEROK being held up as a model for other youth organisations by the government's "Ungdomsstyrelsen" (The fund for national youth activities).

The not-very-loudly-spoken rationale for government supporting "youth activities" in Norway and Sweden are to bribe the youth in order to keep them from drifting on the streets, taking drugs etc. etc. I.e. this is not culture funding / art funding - the amount of members and activity (not their nature and quality) are the only significant criteria for disbursion of government funds.

About larp funding in Sweden and Norway
Swedish larps have found some other sources of funding - collaborations with the National Theatre, art grants, donations from the Inheritance Fund, even movie-production grants. Unlike the SVEROK funds, these are significant - there are several big-budget Swedish larps that could never have been produced without this funding/collaboration.

Mathijs has allready described Hyperion/N4F in Norway. I can't say I agree with Matthijs' characterization that "the anarchistic LARPers don't like Hyperion much", more accurate would be to say that a lot of larpers don't see Hyperion as particularly relevant nor as being able to adress their needs, but have been known to join or co-operate with Hyperion when there is an overlap of interest. More importantly - Norwegian larps and larp-related activities allready receive funding as "theatre", through the lottery fund for amateur theatre and through the umbrella organisation NAR. This is project-based funding, not member-based funding, and so suits the larp activity better. Both the amount of activity and the quality of productions play a role in this funding. Still, it's influence is on a par with SVEROK and Hyperion funds - it's a helpfull addition to a larp budget, but not a large enough amount that it would make new kinds of larp possible.

Both Hyperion/NF4 and theatre funds for larps in Norway are recent news. SVEROK, on the other hand, has been around since 1988. Eero's statement that "Regardless, this is clearly the decade of roleplaying as far as art and mainstream is concerned." applies to Norway, too.

Potential support for publishing RPGs : the native-language argument
A few years back Tomas Mørkrid (author of "Fabula", the first Norwegian RPG) managed to obtain a grant from the Cultural Council of aprox. USD 15.000 (NOK 100.000) for the organisation "Norske Rollespill". The purpose was to cultivate Norwegian-language game design, and the argument was very much centred on the dominance of English in Norwegian role-playing culture.

This argument - oppose the dominance of English by cultivating locally-produced games in the native language - is a very powerfull one in the Nordic countries. When a language has only 4 million native speakers, it can never match the wealth of litterature and cultural production in a language like English, French or German. As a result, our countries get gradually "anglophied" - English is already the language of science, the language of cinema and television, the language of street slang, the language of advertising. France might be trying to protect it's language as a method of cultural imperialism, for the Nordic countries it's more a matter of cultural and economic survival.

As a result, Norwegian book publishing is thoroughly subsidized. There are tax discounts and subsidies for Norwegian-language books at every level of production: writing, printing, distribution, sales. The library purchase system, where many (but not all) books get bought in about 1000 copies for the libraries, ensure a minimum sale of Norwegian books. Sweden has a similar system, Finland is contemplating it. Subsidies are especially oriented towards niche publications, the kind of litterature which is comercially viable in English but would have too few readers to be profitable in Norwegian.

RPGs could probably show some impressive statistics when it comes to players, although far less impressive statistics when it comes to sales (a couple of books can keep a group playing for years). If play statistics could be shown in combination with the native-language argument, it could yield a lot better funding for the development of independent RPGs in the Nordic countries.

(a note: Due to a different tradition of copyright law, almost any Scandinavian RPG would be "creator-owned" and thereby "independent" by the Forge definition. In the Scandinavian legal system, it is almost impossible for an author to not own the copyright of his/her work. Publication rights could be sold, or automatically granted by a salaried writer to the studio, but the long-term copyright remains with the author.)

Actually, come to think of it, why havent't more indie rpgs published in the Nordic countries allready? 

regards,
.eirik.

[Ron Edwards]

Quick clarification, not to be further discussed here (but in other threads, if anyone wants).

The Forge definition of "independent" has nothing to do with copyright. Many contracts allow an author to "retain copyright" but destroy independence as defined here. Here, it refers to continuing executive control, over the content, over the promotion and marketing, and over the income.

Back on topic ...

As the language/culture element is clearly not going to be involved in generating funds for role-playing companies or whatever in English, it seems that developing something like the Xeric Foundation might be the best thing to shoot for next.

I'm not sure when the Xeric Foundation was begun, but I'm thinking early-1990s based on (a) Dave Sim's intensive promotion of self-publishing in comics around then, (b) Peter Laird's economic history with the Turtles (e.g. movie income), and (c) when I started seeing lots of cool comics with Xeric acknowledgments (a bit later).

H'm. Food for thought, for whoever of us makes a pile with a hit show or movie one of these days.

Best,
Ron

[matthijs]

Actually, come to think of it, why havent't more indie rpgs published in the Nordic countries allready?

Well, if you go by publications pr. capita, the Norwegian output would be roughly equivalent to a total of 400-500 U.S. indie games. So I guess it's mostly a matter of too few people (in addition to the fact that it's a non-native hobby requiring knowledge of a foreign language). But I'd love to see more. Hopefully, the recent increased interest in game design in Norway will result in a few indie publications.

[Jonas Ferry]

Eirik, that's a good overview of what Sverok's about. I can clarify a couple of your points.

There are two types of funding for regular gaming groups. The first one is membership funding, which you get for every member between 7 and 25. You get $5 per member for the first 1000 members and $2.5 for every member after that. This is where the youth-orientation is most obvious I think.

The second type of funding is activity funding. You need five members, who can be any age, and need to send in an activity report, which will give you $250 per year. As far as I know this could be used for anything, so five people getting together a few times playtesting their game could use the money for publishing.

Then there's project funding, but as you say, Eirik, this should be used for one-time events with a big audience, like convention funding or LARP funding and not for publishing with profit in mind.

You can't get money from Sverok and another organization that gets money from Ungdomsstyrelsen at the same time, but it's ok to get funding from your municipality or Studiefrämjandet (The Study Promotion Association). You could get municipal money quite easily in the 90s, but I think it's harder now.

If you turn your design work into a study circle you could get help from Studiefrämjandet, but that would probably be in the form of equipment (using their computers to do writing and layout of your game), locales (for meetings, if you don't want to be at someone's home) and perhaps help with arranging meetings with printing offices, but I don't think you could get any hard cash. They have a text on study circles on roleplaying games, unfortunately only in Swedish.

[mindwanders]

I did a little investigation into government funding here in the UK a while back when I was looking into running a high budget LARP.

The only thing I could find that looked viable was the Awards for All scheme run by the national lottery. It would give up to £5000 for a single project that lasted for less than a year. Unfortunately, it required you to be non-profit and there were restrictions on what you could spend the money on.

I never persued it much further, but it certainly looked viable.