might mean for the country’s industry as a whole. “The Italian games industry is a bit behind the


curve, compared to the UK,” notes Fanelli. “We are probably 10 years behind as an industry. “We have some very big developers, like Ubisoft Milan, that have been around for more than 20-30 years. But the smaller developers started around 5-10 years ago. I actually started my own studio about eight years ago. “Initiatives like this serve two purposes to me.


The first one is that we give money to the startups. It’s public money, so it’s basically a grant. Nothing will be recouped on that, it’s not equity investment, it’s basically free money from the government. So they get money, they get mentoring… and that’s probably more important than the money in this case. Because the teams that we’re incubating are really small, really new in the business, so they absolutely need some direction. “The other thing I think is very important with


this initiative, is that we’re sending a message to the Italian gaming industry, because it’s the first time that something like this has been done. And what we’ve seen is that we had this kind of waterfall effect on other initiatives. Since we announced it, two other Italian incubators announced that they’ll open this year. So this is a very, very positive effect.”


GOVERNMENT SUPPORT Perhaps the most encouraging thing to come from the accelerator is the Government support. As we’ve seen in the UK, Government funds and tax relief can certainly provide a huge boost to the industry. Having passionate and talented game creators is one thing, but they’ll struggle to make an impact without sufficient support. “We’ve lobbied the government for a long, long


time. You know, we always talk with the government, but we started talking with them about the tax credit around five years ago. We are always in touch, and we’ve been lobbying them for forever to get support for the industry. It took a lot of time for us to actually get recognition.” And I’m sure you’ve already guessed one of the


reasons why the Italian government is starting to invest in the games industry. The period since March 2020 has, of course, been a hugely transformational time in so many ways – with the sudden boom in gaming revenues being one of the few bright spots. “It’s a bad thing to say, but COVID definitely


accelerated everything. Digital entertainment got a huge boost from COVID. It definitely put us on the map as an industry, because before video games were


not a priority. It took years, but everything really accelerated in the last 16 months. “It’s definitely a big change. We’ve seen from talking


to the government, it’s different than before, and it’s definitely a lasting change. This first measure we have right now, it’s really important to us, but it’s a small amount of money compared to other industries. “You know, getting four million Euros to support


that prototyping side of the industry, it’s not a lot of money for now. Also for the tax credits, it’s five million euros – just to give you an idea on cinema tax credits in Italy, it’s 465 million euros this year, and will be probably almost double that for the next year. So the amount of money is a lot bigger for cinema and TV production. For games, it’s very, very small, but it’s the beginning of something. “So what we are doing right now is asking the


government to raise the ceiling, asking for more money to support the industry because I think they were surprised. The government was actually not sure that there was enough demand from the industry, but for the first level fund, they actually exhausted the whole allocation in less than two hours. They had to close down everything because they received too many applications for the fund, and it probably will be the same for tax credits when they open it. “It’s positive for us, because if we have a lot of people


applying to get support from the government, they get a clear signal that there is a lot of demand from the industry. So what we’re doing right now is asking them to actually raise the money that we put into the industry, because it’s definitely needed.”


CATCHING UP A large part of what Fanelli is pushing for is the introduction of support schemes that are already in place elsewhere in the world, in order to allow them to compete internationally. “In the UK, you have a lot of measures. It’s the same


in France and Germany. Every country has their own kind of measures. Not having them in Italy… The problem is that it’s difficult for you, as an industry, to compete internationally if you don’t get help. But I think we’ve had very good feedback from the government. I think they’ll keep investing in Italy.” So, assuming this accelerator is a huge success,


prompting similar programmes and further growth in the industry. Let’s assume that the future of the Italian games industry is as rosy as we’d love it to be. What kind of games would come out of this culture? What makes a game distinctly Italian? “Yeah, that’s an interesting question,” says Fanelli.


January 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 25


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