Strings Attached to Texas Game Grant Money

You might recall Andrew mentioning that Texas had passed a new bill that would allow game developers to apply for up to $250,000 in grants in Texas, if they met certain conditions, including spending a certain amount of money in the state.

There was talk when the bill passed that there would be content restrictions on who could receive the money, but at the time, they were supposedly not made part of the bill. However, Game Politics is reporting that there are indeed strings attached to this money.

Apparently, an article on The Statesman is saying that, “To appease some concerned legislators, the incentive program was structured to guard against paying companies that make violent games. The state will be allowed to pick and choose projects, eliminating those that have ‘inappropriate content’ or are ‘obscene.’ Game companies are left wondering which projects could be deemed ‘inappropriate.’

Honestly, this is no surprise. With the current political climate surrounding video games, it would be difficult to believe that any government organization would offer up grants to companies that might make games that were violent, or even rated “M”. How it pans out in the execution remains to be seen, but you can bet that the Texas government won’t be going out on a limb.